no labels, except for one.

for the longest time i have detested labels. and i don't often use this word--i find it to be so powerfully, negatively charged--but, i'm going to make this exception. i hate labels.  i realized this morning, with a sudden sharpness, why i hate them.

for enough of my childhood, i spent a lot of time deflecting mean racist remarks. ever since i was 5 years old, a year has not gone by where i did not have racist slurs thrown at me, slapping me across my face, piercing my heart, exposing my gut, forming impassable lumps in my throat and stinging my eyes with acidic tears.

as a child, i remember not understanding why strangers would make fun of me, a child walking to school, swinging on the playground, folding clothes at the laundromat, shopping at the grocery store, or simply playing in front of her home. my next door neighbor's had shouted through the walls, "go back where you came from!" and a coworker at a restaurant remarked that my name sounded like silverware dropping to the floor. i wished for an english name and an english face, for non-korean eyes. i wished so much to not be made fun of for things that i could not change. i was born a korean but as an immigrant child in america, i hated being korean.

i changed myself in the ways i could control. i became a hard-working student, i perfected my cursive handwriting, i learned to speak english with an untraceable accent. i decided that i was going to be the best at everything i could be. in my mind, i thought, if i was "perfect," i would be untouchable. i would be safe from taunts and ridicule, safe from shameful reminders of how i don't belong, of how i would never belong.

as a child, i zoomed in. i focused so intently on fitting in, of being accepted, of pleasing others as a fool proof way to avoid their meanness. i became the funny one, the nurturer, the entertainer, the organizer, the crowd favorite, the leader, the team captain, homecoming queen, and class secretary.  i focused so much of my energy on being someone, a persona i thought i should be, that i lost my true self in that macro vision. that tunnel vision included lots of labels, expectations and instructions. if i was labeled "smart," it mean that i had to know everything. an "athletic" label meant that i had to do sports year round. a label was a terrible reminder of how inadequate i was and felt, of how i would never be all that that label meant, of how i'm not ___________ enough.

as an adult, i hate labels because i find them so limiting. they also focus too far into only one specific and narrow dynamic of a person's capabilities and contributions. even though i know that labels, at times, can provide a certain context of an individual's identity, i prefer to zoom out with the most inclusive label i accept and enjoy: human.