A Cambodian immigrant faces discrimination
The presence of other Cambodians at her elementary school helped ease Kong's anxiety about her identity, but she still encountered discrimination. White kids called her "chink," though thankfully she did not know what the word meant until much later. When she did, and she heard the slur used, it hurt her a great deal.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Ran Kong, November 25, 2000. Interview K-0269. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- BARBARA LAU:
-
Well, when you first started going to school, did you feel really
different than the other kids? And how did teachers and other people
that were around you, did they help that, make it worse, or what was
that experience like?
- RAN KONG:
-
I think it helped a lot that I went to a school that had other
Cambodians in it. My elementary school was Caesar Cone Elementary
School. And I think that at that point that was the only elementary
school in Greensboro that was offering English as a second language. And
so I wasn't the only Asian there. And my sister and my cousin
also went there, and a couple of other Cambodian kids who I knew from
the community. So in a sense, I didn't feel totally
different, but at the same time, we were going to ESL classes with our
teachers. And you know, so I knew that we weren't exactly,
you know, like other American kids who were just staying in the
classroom, you know, the whole day. We had to go to a special class and
learn English.
- BARBARA LAU:
-
You said before that even with the kids in your neighborhood you
realized that you looked different. Did kids tease you?
- RAN KONG:
-
Well, yeah. You know, I think the most common phrase that I heard thrown
at me when I was little was "Chink." So I
don' t know, I don't look very Chinese to me, but
I guess you know, what kids pick up from their parents or what kids pick
up from the media, that's all they can use against you.
- BARBARA LAU:
-
Were there people in your school that kind of tried to counteract that, or did you feel like some of the teachers felt
like you were really different too?
- RAN KONG:
-
Well, I don't think I really knew what that word meant back
then. You know, it wasn't really until fifth grade when one
of my friends actually called me that name again, that I really
understood that it was derogatory, and I knew that it wasn't
nice to call somebody that. You can sort of like sense that and pick
that up. But I didn't really know what that meant, until
fifth grade. So, you know, kindergarten, first, second grade, whoever,
you know, like whatever. Nothing really matters. You know,
we're all on the playground, we all play together. It
doesn't really matter.
- BARBARA LAU:
-
So what happened in fifth grade? Can you describe that experience?
- RAN KONG:
-
Well, I'm going to leave out the person's name.
Actually, I still remember him to this day, and my fifth grade teacher,
I loved her, actually, Mrs. Knight. And I was sort of
teacher's pet. And so everybody in the class was like,
she's teacher's pet, you know, like
don't mess with her, type of thing. And so I was outside and
my teacher had said, go out and take the erasers from the chalkboard,
and bang them against the wall of the building and get all the chalk out
and stuff. And so of course, I always volunteered to do this. And so I
went outside and I was just banging away, chalk dust flying everywhere.
And the guy comes out. He was actually one of my friends. And he was
like, Chink, hey Chink, what's up? You know, just, Chink, Ran
is a Chink. And that just really upset me that, like this guy who I
considered one of my friends was calling me this name. And I actually
hadn't heard it in a while. I developed this like image of
myself that I'm teacher's pet so nobody should
mess with me. And so of course, like it upset me to
the point that I burst out crying. And I went inside, back into the
classroom. And the teacher was like, what's wrong, Ran? And I
was like, this person's name, was calling me Chink. And the
bell rang, and we all got into a line, leaving the school building. And
it's funny because Mrs. Knight grabs, one of those little
pads from her desk and goes, you know, person's name, you
don't go around— you know, that's not
very nice. You shouldn't say that to Ran. And this is what
you're going to have to do. So she wrote down on her pad, I
will not call Ran a Chink anymore. You have to write this down 500 times
and turn it in to me tomorrow. So that was his form of punishment for
calling me that. But I guess it was just kind of funny, because later on
he did come up and apologize. And I guess I've seen him in
high school, and I think later on he dropped out. But he still
remembered me, and I still remembered him. And I think we both
remembered that incident very well.
- BARBARA LAU:
-
What do you think you and he learned from that incident?
- RAN KONG:
-
I think I learned that, it's really horrible, but when
somebody makes a comment like that to you, it does hurt no matter how
much you try to bar yourself against saying that it doesn't
hurt and even in fifth grade, I don't think I really knew
like the full extent. I just knew that it was bad and I
didn't want to be called that. And so I guess I learned too
that sometimes like— I guess like after he was punished, I
guess I felt like a little bit happier that he was punished, but at the
same time, it wasn't like completely, he deserved it, you
know. I don't know. I think I wish that it had never happened
at all, like that incident had never happened at all, because
it's just something that I remember very
clearly from fifth grade. And to him, I don't know. I hope he
learned a lot more than just to never mess with a teacher's
pet, I guess. So, I don't know.