Over the past few years, younger generations of Asian Americans seem to have shed some of these notions of traditional propriety or habits calling to ignore aggressions
The first time I felt someone making assumptions based on my ethnicity, I was no older than 7, standing outside my ballet class in Foster City, California. A woman asked me a question about the dance studio, and I hesitated because I was sometimes shy when speaking to strangers.
"Oh, do you not speak English?" she asked.I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I lived in a multigenerational household for the first few years, where only Mandarin was spoken. I didn't learn to speak English until I was in preschool. Natasha Chen celebrates her 5th birthday alongside her parents.But this woman wouldn't have known that. She questioned my language skills because I look Asian, and therefore foreign.