Ashley Wong

Transcript

four months ago my mom was driving me to swim practice as we turned onto a busy street we were held up by a couple in a shiny black range rover parked in the middle of the road a well-dressed man got out from the range rover and he sauntered to the back to get his golf clubs and he did this for about a good minute so my mom and i waited as he held up four cars rummaging around and fixing his clubs when he finally looked up my mom gave him a look well to be exact she went like this so he comes right up to

us well right up to me as i'm in the passenger seat and my nine-year-old sister's in the back and he says you're all just [ __ ] asian so go and [ __ ] back off obviously we are all in shock my first instinct is to look back at my little sister and i can see the tears welling up her eyes my mum is shaking with i don't know if it's fury or shame or just because our kids had to hear that i feel my stomach twist and drop and it's mainly for my mum because she looks at us and then back at him and

i think she feels vulnerable and defenseless because she doesn't know what to do and i don't know why but i feel embarrassed and then immediately ashamed because i know we did nothing wrong my mom pulls herself together and rolls down the car window and says you're racist to which he laughs at us and walks onto the golf course you're all just [ __ ] asians so go and [ __ ] back off i often think about how it took him 10 seconds to say this to us and yet his words had consequences firstly my little sister was so upset living in a multicultural society being

asian was never the most significant part of her identity like me she had never experienced racism before but unlike me she didn't even know that it existed she does now she sees the difference where she had never done so before as for me i had just been identified as an asian well as a [ __ ] asian to be exact and that was strange to me because i had always identified more with being canadian a girl who loves to read to listen to music and to swim but that's not how he saw me he saw me as nothing more but asian and with his 10

seconds of words he pushed my asian identity past being a girl past being an athlete and past being youth right to center stage and it's kind of sad because he almost pushed my asian identity past being canadian because now i think about my asian identity all the time and it's in my everyday life when i'm on the bus after reading news reports of racist attacks on public transport when i read racist graffiti and i identify as one of those people that they want to send back home but then how does that work because i am home my sister's still a bit nervous to go out

to the mall to the grocery store so i tell her what i have learned our identity grew stronger through this struggle i know his words sucked but we now know ourselves better we are more convicted in who we are i am still a girl an athlete a youth i am still canadian but we are also asian and we have thought more about it because of this i tell her our identity only gets stronger through challenge and also i say next time we'll just run him over thank you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.