I've found the model-minority myth to be toxic in so many ways. Here's one thing I can attest to personally: we're not all East Asians. I grew up in section-8 h

I've found the model-minority myth to be toxic in so many ways. Here's one thing I can attest to personally: we're not all East Asians. I grew up in section-8 housing, then moved next to a meth house raided by the FBI, attended vocational schools in the inner city where I had friends killed and imprisoned, personally had a gun pointed at me, twice, slept on a sofa my entire childhood, in a dysfunctional bankrupt abusive family. I'm also a first-generation immigrant and political refugee, with my dad having spent half a decade in a hard-labor camp, my mom homeless and nurturing my brother with only rice water, who has since died of a rare digestive cancer, and our assets decapitalized by communists multiple times. Eventually, I ended up at Google and for all the talks of diversity, inclusion and "unconscious bias", people from my background are left out of the conversation. I've found the worst perpetrators of the Unconscious Bias to be Asian-Americans. It's hard believing we can be stewards of "we are not our users" when we can barely understand we are not our colleagues, who aren't all from privileged middle class backgrounds who had their parents pay for SAT prep classes. It's really ironic because these people tend to be the loudest about calling out privilege. Last month, I left behind the high-flying salaries and moved to Japan. The quality of life here is so much higher, even though my income is 1/4th as much. Practically everyone wears a mask and there's just a higher level of regard for society at large. Basket-of-goods analysis don't account for being triggered by people refusing to wear masks in New York. Mind you, I've spent 90% of my life in the states and have considered myself American, first and foremost. 2020 really made me reassess my identity as an Asian-American and the place of Asian-Americans in America. Without going further into the hypocrisy of politics, Asians are just a politically inconvenient truth. What is happening in the Bay Area is happening in New York, where I lived, too. 90% of my friends have experienced harassment passively, aggressively, and in a few instances violently. There was the 89 year old woman set on fire [1]. Then there was the woman who had acid thrown on her [2]. NYC governance threw together a hate-crime Task force, but I'm cynical it has accomplished anything other than trying to fundraise. Bill De Blasio has literally turned his back on Asian business owners after showing up for the photo op [3]. People barely realize the poverty rate of Asian-Americans in New York City hover around 25% [4]. [1] https://abc7ny.com/woman-set-on-fire-elderly-attack-89-year-old-attacked-bensonhurst-crime/6333749/ https://abc7ny.com/woman-set-on-fire-elderly-attack-89-year-... [2] https://nypost.com/2020/04/06/brooklyn-woman-burned-outside-home-in-possible-acid-attack/ https://nypost.com/2020/04/06/brooklyn-woman-burned-outside-... [3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bill-de-blasio-bakery-manager-new-york-nyc-coronavirus-video-a9671141.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bill-de-bl... [4] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/opportunity/news/004/some-good-news-asian-american-poverty-new-york-city https://www1.nyc.gov/site/opportunity/news/004/some-good-new...