I attended a webinar over the weekend titled “Love Me As I Am: How to Have an Inter-generational Conversation on Beauty Standards and Self-Worth.” It answered some questions that I had been searching for and also helped me reflect on the ability (or lack thereof) to have an open conversation and communicate emotions and feelings in itself.
Many Asian Americans like myself grew up with the phrase “Did you eat yet?” It was not uncommon for children to hear this asked more often than be told the words “I love you.” It wasn’t until recently that I began to understand this phrase as love language, that it signaled an indirect communication of care. When I was young, I learned that when I was asked this from a parent, tita or tito, it didn’t matter the answer--because I was to accept food regardless, let my plate be filled by the person who asked and eat every bite otherwise it would be a huge sign of disrespect. However, this common language of love was often followed directly by some variation of the statement “Tsk … you are getting too big/chubby/fat … you should eat less/start dieting/hide this.” The inability to understand these two opposing lines of thought often said in succession to each other was to break down the true meaning behind them, and find perspective.
Nelly Nguyen, a Vietnam War refugee and mother of Thi Bui (author of The Best We Could Do), spoke on the question of eating. She was able to define that eating and dieting were not seen in the same category. She pointed out that eating has a different meaning when you come from a third world country as opposed to America. That eating in abundance was a privilege. To be able to eat until you were full was a luxury. So when an elder asks that question, it is a question often rooted in a poverty, war and refugee mindset. I was able to recognize that for my family, coming to America and having access to food was also a way to spread new found availability and wealth. They would no longer have to think of eating as a matter of survival and scarcity, and it was a gift to be able to offer their food to others.
Susan Lieu, performer and playwright of the solo show 140lbs: How Beauty Killed My Mother, posed the question of why our bodies were always subject to criticism of being outside the expected norms. She shared that after giving birth to her first child, he father told her she needed to start to think about losing weight not soon after. Why are we asked to change our bodies to fulfill the expectations of society or what our parents thought society wanted of us? So I started to reflect on this experience in my own life.
It reminded me of all the times my mother tried to hide parts of my body she deemed shameful. Particularly all the times as a young adult I had to pose for a photograph. I would have to stand slightly at an angle to hide my belly. I would have to position my feet into a certain position to hide my bowed legs. I needed to always put my hand on my hip to reduce the size of my arms. As an adult she would criticize photos she saw of me because I stopped doing all those things and presented myself as I am. She would immediately comment on how I was standing or how I should have worn long pants/sleeves if I wanted to be in a picture. I remember showing her a photo of me and my partner dressed up for a wedding and being proud of the outfit I had bought, only to have her look at it and tell me how terrible my arms looked since they were so big.
I wanted to show off my dress, but instead I got criticized for not covering up the size of my arms.
Later in life when I became an athlete, she would be confused about my larger butt and defined biceps. She once tried to invalidate my strength by saying that her biceps were just as big, flexing in front of me. My only saving grace in that moment was my father, who yelled from across the room “Your daughter has muscles, not mush-cles!”
These criticisms of our bodies that we are subjected to by our parents have many levels of meaning. It is rooted in colonialism and being able to fit into American society while remaining invisible. It is rooted in toxic beauty standards taught through generations. It is rooted in patriarchy, and fitting into what a wife and potential mother’s body should be able to satisfy.
Cindy Nguyen, creator of Family Notes, spoke on how to have these conversations with family. She introduced herself as someone who went through all the trouble of pursuing a PhD in order to become closer to her family. She reiterated that Asian families often do not speak of love. And to be able to have that conversation would mean finding a different way to communicate it in nontraditional ways that felt meaningful to oneself. For her, it was as simple as saying “I love you” in her parents’ secondary language.
Communicating my feelings has always been challenging. I started digging deeper to understand why. I came across some very distinct realizations.
Whenever I am asked to speak about my feelings, I have an automatic reaction that starts in my throat. It feels like it seizes up and the tension swells through my jaw. It is often followed by an overwhelming need to cry, regardless of the positive or negative space I am in. I can never get past this immediate reaction anytime I am asked directly how I feel. It could be about work, relationships, or opinions. Why is this where my body sends its response? Where in my mind does it feel it needs to protect me in this way?
I became aware that I have an emotional void. I grew up not talking about my feelings. Not only that, I was never asked to talk about my feelings. I was often told how to feel instead, or rather told to not feel to uphold a certain version of myself in other people’s eyes. When I finally found the courage to express my feelings to my parents for the first time as an adult, I was called “sensitive” and that they would not bring up certain topics again since I took their words so “personal.” I was defeated. I wasn’t allowed to own feelings. All I could think about was that my feelings didn’t matter and had no place in our relationship at all.
When someone, anyone, these past few years simply asked me, “how are you feeling?” I would immediately feel threatened. Or rather ambushed and caught by surprise that anyone would actually want to know. My throat would once again close in on itself and the tears came. I once cried in front of my doctor when I was asked, because I felt they genuinely cared to hear, even if they were just asking about my physical health.
I was recently asked why I found it so hard to communicate my feelings. Why what came out of my mouth initially weren’t the words I was actually trying to say. How it always took a long, jumbled mess to get to the actual message I wanted to respond with. I thought back to when I was younger. I never spoke a word. It often was just tears when I was angry or upset or scared. Growing up our parents chose to only speak English to us, because to them, having an accent was looked down upon in America. They only spoke Tagalog to each other. More importantly, I reflected on this language barrier and realized that all the emotions my parents ever expressed were in a language I couldn’t understand. When they argued in front of us and all we could do was interpret their body language and inflection. If we ever made them upset there were often words in my parents’ primary language said as they walked away from us or under their breath, never to be understood.
I literally could not interpret spoken feelings as a child. So when it came time to speak of my own, my throat froze.
How do I find my voice from here? I will continue this journey to heal the void from here and eventually find the right words to speak about how I truly feel and not stumble when I do.