Consider if you would you label yourself “privileged” or “unprivileged,” or would you say it is more complicated than that? What aspects of your identity and social position (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation, class background, dis/ability, religion, age…) affected your final determination? Have you had experiences that caused you to reconsider your level of privilege, or that did not seem to be tied to some aspect of your identity, or which were tied to multiple aspects at once? Personal experience: I grew up as the eldest female daughter. I was expected to reach alot of high expectations for given standards in my household, as well as society. I was expected to talk and possibly marry someone my race; male. I was expected to be quiet and pure. And to be girly and dainty. I was expected to be graceful and to hinder my thoughts and emotions as a young girl. For, I was taught that my elders, particularly men, were always and will always be right. I was restricted to freely do things, but men, to me as I was taught, could frolick and do anything they deemed as right fit themselves. Women, to me, were silenced and restricted to hold up to a standard to be mothers and daughters but could not do as they please and follow men’s orders and didn’t have a say. I was however, wanting to break out of that. I had announced that I was bisexual during my sophomore year in high school. My father, however, disapproved and telling me it’s not fit for me as a young female teenager who will become a woman– that it was wrong to love both men and women. I started to speak up to my father about pertaining conflicts as I face as a teenager. But I was told often that I was wrong to stand up and no need to stand up for myself. Some days, I’ll dress girly or days I want to dress down and feeling tom boy-ish myself. I like to do heavy work– although some people think it’s not fit for me and only men should do the heavy written. I stood up for what I think was right and have a voice and say. And I think it is also right to be treated as equals as men, women, or anyone it may be. Not only that, with being Asian; specifically Hmong-American–there comes alot of stereotypes about being Asian, how discriminating it can be sometimes, and even being fantasized or fetishized.
