Running head: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT REFLECTION 1

Personal Development Reflection

Valerie Luutran

Florida State University

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Personal Development Reflection

My first draft of this reflection began with a vignette of how early I was taught the

societal expectations that accompanied being a cisgender woman and how that identity has

remained the most salient throughout my life. This is the narrative I default to when engaging in

dialogue surrounding social identities and the one I am most confident sharing, which is

consistent with it being the identity I am most secure in. After a well-intentioned peer asked me

whether I believed the low saliency of my racial identity made me feel more or less tokenized in

certain spaces, I realized that I would be doing myself a great disservice if I continued to ignore

the identity I am least comfortable with.

I was three years old when I came home from preschool and my mother asked me if I

wanted chuối. Luckily, I was armed with new knowledge from my teacher that the yellow fruits

were actually called bananas and was able to correct her. This was the first instance of my many

attempts throughout adolescence to distance myself from my identity as an Asian American.

Despite having many peers with this shared racial identity in my classes, my neighborhood and

friend group was still predominantly White and I subsequently became aware of my racial

identity through a lens of confusion, seeing it as neutral (Kim, 2012). My active involvement in

beauty pageants, modeling, dance classes, and other activities centered around societal ideals of

femininity led to my deep internalization of White standards of attractiveness, but also to my

socialization into the cultural norms of Whiteness in America (Kim, 2012). I was undoubtedly in

a stage of active White identification, refusing to speak Vietnamese in public and asking my

grandma to cook Italian dishes rather than her signature pho (Kim, 2012).

I ignored microaggressions from my friends as if they did not apply to me and stifled

my acute awareness of my otherness because I reaped the alleged benefits of being the motivated
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and successful student that fit the model minority myth and being complimented by male

classmates for being “the prettiest Asian girl.” I fell further into this denial after the events of

September 11, 2001, which resulted in students of South Asian descent being “randomly

selected” for screenings and my Bengladeshi classmate, who turned four on the day of the

tragedy, never celebrating his birthday again. These repercussions directly shaped the

experiences of those around me, but still did not change how I was treated – at least at the micro

level. In essence, I continued to navigate the world with the mindset that I may be a different

color, but at least I am not what society identifies as the wrong color.

I wish I could say I have since moved beyond this stage towards reconciliation of my

racial identity and national origin, towards a sense of pride in this facet of who I am (Kim, 2012).

However, I still struggle to align myself with this identity, despite close connections with Asian

American friends from college and ample knowledge of the historical marginalization of this

community and racist roots of the model minority myth. When speaking on these topics, I feel as

though I am an ally working to elevate the narratives of others, rather than someone who is self-

advocating for a life free from oppression. Returning to the question posed to me regarding

tokenization, I recognize that my discomfort in those spaces does not stem from being valued for

little more than my racial identity. Instead, it stems from the belief that I am unqualified to speak

on “the Asian American experience” because I do not feel as though I have lived it, despite

knowing that this identity shapes nearly every interaction I have with others.

Recent exploration of literature has provided a wealth of empirical evidence of shared

experiences, which has been helpful in moving towards a closer correlation between how I view

myself and how society views me. For example, a study concluding how Asian women were the

racial minority group most susceptible to dissatisfaction with their bodies in response to
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mainstream beauty standards helped give context and affirmation to my own acceptance of

White ideals of attractiveness I would never actually be able to attain (Chin Evans & McConnell,

2003). I want to believe this education has helped my paradigm shift away from the view of

Whiteness as superior, but I have not seen this shift at a deeper level (Kim, 2012). I know that I

am structurally and systemically disadvantaged by being a woman, and I know the same is true

for my racial identity. But unlike when I feel the effects of the former when I am walking alone

at night or subject to sexist microaggressions, I cannot identify situations that would make me

feel oppressed specifically due to being Asian American.

I have yet to define the “politics embedded in espousing [this] identity” that Kim

(2012) cites as a catalyst for moving towards incorporation, but the support and guidance of my

instructors and colleagues throughout the remainder of my graduate studies will be pivotal in

doing so (Patton, Renn, Guido, & Quaye, 2016). I strongly believe in the value of hearing the

lived experiences of folx with marginalized identities, and I am hopeful that I will one day grow

to find as much value in my own story.

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References

Kim, J. (2012). Asian American racial identity development theory. In C.L. Wijeyesinghe & B.

W. Jackson, III (Eds.), New perspectives on racial identity development: Integrating

emerging frameworks (2nd ed., pp. 138-160). New York: New York University Press.

Chin Evans, P., & McConnell, A.R. (2003). Do racial minorities respond in the same way to

mainstream beauty standards? Social comparison processes in Asian, Black, and White

women. Self & Identity 2(2), 153-167.

Patton, L.D., Renn, R.A., Guido, F.M., & Quaye, S.J. (2016). Student development in college:

Theory, research, and practice (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.