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"All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord; they will bring glory to your name." Psalm 86:8-10
My Asian American studies professor once defined the meaning of “oriental” for us. With passionate fervor, he explained why, with the utmost subtlety, its usage has always been rooted in derogatory colonialist elitism. As a student, I sat in a cushioned chair in a lecture hall of over a hundred, half listening and half chatting with a friend on Gmail about next Monday’s dinner plans. It seemed to me at the time that any ethnic studies department at my university taught students how to complain. Students would pass out fliers for “culture nights,” rallying for the “cause” of Asian Americans, Chicano Americans, African Americans, Pacific Islander Americans, etcetera. So urgent were the announcements that it seemed like we were preemptively fighting another civil rights movement that was apparently imminent. (Reference Alexandra Wallace incident)
Everyone is always fighting to be treated the same, and to be “seen” the same. But what happens when you lose that fight? How much make-up do you wear to make your eyes larger? How many plastic surgery operations do you have? How many visits to the salon to lighten your hair? How many people do you dazzle with your excellent grasp of the English language? How many Caucasian friends do you surround yourself with? What do you tell yourself when you look in the mirror? Will this reflected image always define exactly who I am? Will this complicated genetic composition of almond brown eyes, dark fine hair, and yellow skin always spell out “Asian,” and not just, “Tiffany”?
Here in the streets of the Philippines our teams of pale-skinned World Racers are gawked at by wide-eyed passersby and giggled at by awestruck children. In the stores, the cosmetics shelves are lined with “face whitening creams,” “whitening deodorants,” and “skin whitening lotions.” AMERICAN has become synonymous to all the virtues we sorely take for granted. Freedom. Opportunity. Security. Privilege. Beauty. Scattered throughout the universities here are signs that emphatically command their readers to “Speak English.” “This is an English-Speaking ONLY zone.” One of the girls here at the orphanage confessed to me that she wished she were light-skinned. “White skin is so beautiful.” It broke my heart to hear that – because I saw myself in her. The little girl who wanted to be like everything that she thought the world wanted her to be, unaware of how awestruck God is of her, just the way she is. Just the way I am.
All my life I’ve been fighting just to fit in, not to stand out.
But I don’t have to do that anymore.
My Daddy has set me apart, and not just in skin color, eye shape, cultural distinction, but chosen as a light in the darkness. He looks at me and doesn’t ask me to trace my ethnic heritage. He looks at me and doesn’t tilt His head in confusion when I say, “No, I’m actually American.” He looks at me and says, “Tiffany.”
Our God has no preferential treatment based on skin color, He doesn’t examine governmental structures, advanced plumbing systems, or speak in one language. He saved us all, together to enter His eternal Kingdom.
