E. Murashige

I’m 27 years old and grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia, though I work in NYC now. I’m half Japanese on my dad’s side, and German and Irish on my mom’s.

From college years on, I noticed I was getting a different kind of attention when I was out at a party or a bar. Men would come up to me asking “What are you?”, and I would tell them. I hate to admit that, at first, I liked the attention. Then one night, some guy asked me that same question. I was drunk and taken advantage of and didn’t tell anyone about it for months. I chalked it up to a one night stand. I hadn’t fully processed what happened until just a couple months ago, when I realized that he had raped me. This is the first time I’m telling someone other than myself what really happened to me that night. After I went through that, I felt immediately disgusted towards men that asked me about my background, especially the ones who asked me before they even asked my name. Asian women are typecast as submissive, docile, exotic items for pleasure, or housework, or whatever fits someone else’s agenda. I’m f**king sick of it and want the world to finally listen.