Ghosting

Some specific things that I related to in Trevor Noah’s book, Born a Crime, is that he said he never really fit in; he just bounced around groups that were split racially and I relate to that. At my old school I also thought I never fit in. I had no friends that I could relate to, I just hovered around in my friend group not really understanding them. I also care about Asian-Americans and their experience of getting bullied, the same way I did, and wanted to write this essay to make Asian-Americans not feel alone like the way I did. The way Trevor explored his own Identity was that he went to a new school, looked around to see all of that was split racially and just looked at which group he would fit in the best (Chapter 4, Chameleon, Pages 40-46). I felt like that was me looking around at my old school trying to find friends that I fit in with. Eventually, I found friends but still found I fit in with them.

Trevors’ writing impacted me to write about the time where I felt like I didn’t fit in/got bullied because since the Pandemic happened a lot of things unexpected things happened to my community that are just so shocking to learn about and surprised that people aren’t even going to do or talk about what happened to my community since the Pandemic hit. Also some of Trevor’s comedic moments in the chapter made me want to make my memoir with some moments that are comedic. Some storytelling techniques I used in my vignette is that I was talking to a person about something personal that happened to me in my life and seeing if they can relate to what I said or see what’s been happening in my community.

I did choose humor like Trevor Noah because I am not a very serious person and a person who kind of laughs at their own pain but lowkey hurting inside yet I used humor just to add some comic relief in my vignette instead of trying to bury my thoughts when I got bullied. I wrote my vignette like I was speaking to an outsider (that never had an experience that I had) face to face and showing them the pain that I’ve been through and how horrible it is to go through that experience and wanting them to feel the way I felt in those moments I got bullied, not to make them feel bad for me or hurt them but to open up their eyes what is happening to the other sides of reality then just one side.

This vignette addresses one of the essential questions, How do our various cultures influence our identities?, because being as an Asian-American it’s like being a person that is in the community/system but no one counts you as one. You’re just like a ghost floating around, no one caring, no one seeing you, no one knowing you exist. I hated being an Asian-American I wanted just to hide in a corner and wait there until people started noticing that there are more than two races but I had to face reality on my own and explore, and soon to find out that there is a community that sees the way I see, a group that shares about their experience being an Asian-Americans, the times they got bullied, social media accounts showing love to Asians. I finally felt that I belonged and finally fit in a community/system. Then not feeling like a ghost and wanting to hide until I woke up from my nightmare.