Recently, I reached out to them because for nearly half my life I've wanted to know: Why did Marc show up for me, someone he barely knew? Did he even remember it? Chelsea was.Īfter I moved away, I stayed in touch with Scott and Marc but mostly through brief exchanges on social media.

It alarmed me how a few unimaginatively racist punchlines could sting so much.īut Marc's e-mail made me realize that I was not in the wrong. Far worse indignities have harmed people of color in this country. I mean, I had my feelings hurt at a drag show. I don't think I ever responded to Marc because I was embarrassed by it all. He wrote that the LGBTQ community was often the target of bigotry and discrimination - how could she turn around and hurl that same kind of insensitivity toward me? I remember that the e-mail was longer than a few sentences because I had to scroll down to get to the end. Marc described her jokes as racist and shameful. Marc, the boyfriend of a co-worker, Scott, copied me on an e-mail he sent to Chelsea, calling out her behavior. But a day or two after the performance, I checked my e-mail and was both mortified and touched by a message topping my inbox. That could have been the end to this memory. While drag shows are known for biting commentary and playful insults, these barbs felt like they were coming from a place of deep prejudice. Maybe it was the cumulative weight of all of those incidents that had me shrinking in my chair in the nightclub, a tear rolling down my check, while what felt like the entire room laughed at me for several minutes. 'Oh, so you was born here?' said the woman behind the counter, bemused and not at all aware that I spoke better English than she did. Message understood.Įven in less charged moments, like when I picked up my clothes from the dry cleaners, people would feel the need to compliment my English. 11 attacks, a white grandmother told me she remembered Pearl Harbor, pausing to stare me down with hardened, suspicious eyes. While I was in a diner to gather local reaction to the Sept. On a downtown sidewalk, teenage boys ridiculed me for my race. In Kentucky, however, my Asian identity was the only thing some people saw. In high school and at college, we didn't have important campaigns like #StopAsianHate or #VeryAsian, but I benefited from the strength of our numbers, which normalized us. Most of my closest friends were Asian American. Until my time in Kentucky, I had been cocooned in the protection of my community. She started roasting me with a stream of 'ching-chong' taunts that countless Asian American kids of my generation had to endure.Įxcept I wasn't one of those kids. I was the only Asian face in the club, and that gave Chelsea, the host, fresh comic material. The house lights dimmed, and my reporter's notebook and I were ready to experience the show.īut not long after the curtain lifted, a prominent local drag queen who was emceeing the event noticed me in the crowd. She let me backstage as she underwent a metamorphosis that entailed feathers, glitter, pantyhose and grit.īefore the show began, I scooted back to my seat while a Mary J. In 2003, I set out to write a narrative feature about a Kentucky drag competition through the eyes of one of the contestants. One thing I did not care for was the overt racism, but I'll get to that in a minute. The culture of the Bluegrass State seemed planets away from my suburban Chicago upbringing, and I became enamored of everything from country roads to sweet tea. A sense of adventure and curiosity brought me to the daily newspaper in Lexington, Ky. Into my mid-20s, I was working at my first reporting gig out of college. All these years, I had never let him know how much that single display of decency stuck with me. I made a New Year's resolution to finally acknowledge a kindness someone paid me nearly two decades ago, when I felt like I was at my smallest.

Chelsea pearl drag queen obituary