How did I learn I am asian

Making amendments with the way I look

The recent raise of asian and hate crimes wave along with the COVID-19 pandemics taught me the dangers of the racism in my own skin. Around February 2020, people started to cross the street to avoid me, hold their breaths when I was in public transportation. That same week, the racist experience escalated, as an old man yelled me to "go back home". It was just disrespectful at first, but this distress grew towards fear. People were acting as I was danger for them due to the way I look, and this broke me inside.

After feeling awful about myself, I dried my tears and began a journey to try to understand how we came to this point, what can be done. The whole experience is very new to me, as I never faced endangering discrimination related to the fact I look asian.

Have I ever felt unsafe before? Yes, because I am woman, not because I look asian. And this changes everything, because when the threat happened, I didn't know how to defend myself. And this time I want to understand, hopping to learn how can I defend myself from future situations like that. And maybe in the future, I can do more to stop this from ever happening not only for me, but for everybody that struggle with any kind of discrimination.