Different

Sunday afternoon my daughter and I attended her friend's birthday party.

She was the only blue eyed, blonde hair girl there.

She was the only completely white kid there.

And I wonder if she notices these things.  Does she know that none of the kids look like her? Does she understand that not everyone speaks like her?

At school a little girl asked her "What is applesauce?"

I'm the parent that packed my kid a weird lunch with strange foods.

And I think perhaps my child does know these things because she asked for a rice ball in her lunch.

I grew up in a small town where we had one family that was black.  One family.  A mixed family. They still live there.  I never thought anything about race, but with each new candle we put on my child's birthday cake, I wonder more and more what it was like for those kids to grow up being the only minority. Because my daughter is growing up as the outsider.

It's hard to put into words race and white privilege when you live in Tokyo.  Many times I feel privileged.  People think I am a tourist and are welcoming.  On the playground mothers and children go out of their way to give in to my child.  We are given random gifts on the train.  I have a pass to mess up the unspoken customs.  I can bend the rules because I am the stranger and do not know better.

And other times I feel completely lost and invisible.  It's like I don't exist here.  I go to the store and the cashier will ask me a question I've not heard before. I feel stupid.  Everything I have learned about buying groceries is gone, and I stand speechless and make guesses to the answer of the question.  I am hopelessly confused as to what I did wrong. I answered the question wrong and did not get a bag for my groceries. I feel foolish as I try to creatively stuff things in the stroller.  I'm embarrassed as I try to pretend this was my plan. Inside I'm crying.  I have an Master's degree and a Superior IQ and I can't even buy groceries the correct way.

I can never be equal to my Japanese peers.  I can never become a citizen.  If I get accused of committing a crime, I most likely will be found guilty.  I am always wrong.   I do not have the privilege of discounts provided to tourists, yet do not have the benefits of a citizen.  Even though my daughter has a Japanese name, the city ward office sends all her paperwork with her name in katakana, an alphabet reserved for things that are foreign, things that are different, things that are not Japanese.

Since my child is starting school, we talked about stranger danger.  I asked her if she knew what a stranger was.  She said, "Yes, they try to touch my hair."  My heart broke.  My child has been reduced to an object. When strangers tell her she's cute or a doll, she screams out "NO!"  She tells me she's not a doll.  She's a human.

I wonder when we'll start seeing each other as human.