P.S. Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Musicians Site--You Rock (Sorry About That...)

Wednesday, April 05, 2023

A little while ago I was searching for an interview on the band Polyphia and specifically Tim Henson, one of the new icons of guitar, and the interwebs sent me to this address:

I'm just going to give you one question/answer from this amazing interview
4. Please tell us a little bit about your experience, either growing up as an AAPI in America, or as a person of Asian descent who immigrated to America, whichever applies. I remember when I was really young, my mom put us in Chinese school. My brother, sister, and I were the only half-white kids there and the other kids made it very apparent… so much so, that by the third day, we all came home crying and my dad pulled us out. I remember really wanting to be more Asian when I was in elementary school because my best friend in second grade—his name is Kevin Fu—he was smart as fuck… and I wanted to be really fucking smart, so I very much wanted to be more Asian, more Chinese, than I was. By the time I got to middle school, most of my friends were white, and I was always “the Asian kid” among them. It was then when I felt like “Shit, I want to be white.” Once I got to middle school, I didn’t want to bring my violin around, because if you do, you go to orchestra and that’s fucking lame. All of my friends were carrying skateboards to school and I was carrying a violin. So, I dropped out of orchestra in 6th grade—though I was in a different orchestra starting when I was 7 and I ended up staying in that one until I was 18 years old, but that was a non-school one; I dropped out of the school orchestra so that I could skate and then pick up guitar, all in an attempt to fit in more with my white friends. Yeah, that was growing up.
Huge huge HUGE ASS props to AAPI Musicians for getting these down.
Love.