For my Bridge 4 Final, I decided to speak on the topic of the unfair treatment monolids have in the beauty community, as well as the microaggressions surrounding monolids. As an Asian American, I was constantly made fun of because my eyes were “chinky”. I was told to open my eyes, was told crude jokes about my “ugly eyes”, and was constantly asked condescending actions whether I could see or not. I was awfully insecure about the fact that my eyes were different from beautiful blue eyes, and lowered my self confidence. I was fixated on a Eurocentric standard of beauty– that I needed to be tall, blonde, and have blue eyes in order to be considered beautiful. However, as I began to reconnect with my Asian community at home, I came to understand that the standard of beauty is not determined my a physical factor, but the confidence that comes with within. I began to acknowledge that the “jokes” I brushed off were not appropriate and further delved into finding confidence in an appearance that was different from a societal construct. Many seemed to not acknowledge the existence of microaggressions in the Asian community despite the fact that we are still people of color and a racial minority, so I thought creating this collage would communicate a joint insecurity Asians felt growing up. I used Photoshop in order to create this collage.
I don’t have a large audience in mind or a long term goal to reach aside from educating others to acknowledge Asian racism. If anyone were to take away anything from this, I would like to explain that microaggressions feed into a greater issue of racial ignorance in this society, and the need to recognize that Asians are people of color as well.
