Mika Ellison

That's Alexander Chee again.

I had a longer conversation with him about this word because he had a lot of thoughts about why it's maybe not actually so great.

I've talked to a couple other people and some people sort of have the same concerns as you of like, it sort of centers whiteness in a way that a lot of people find kind of annoying or like, I guess aggressive.

But other people are kind of saying like,

I talked to one expert who said she actually likes it because it's kind of acknowledging the whiteness in a way that might be good instead of like just sort of saying like mixed Asian.

I wonder if you have any thoughts on that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, even though he's not a fan of the word, he did seem kind of resigned to it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think where I come down on it is I do actually like it.

I think it names a lot of the uncomfortability I had.

As like a kid growing up, because we would try to talk about mixed Asians, like you were saying, but that was so broad.

Like it's so depending on what you're mixed with, depending on your history, like I feel like it started to get so difficult to talk about what mixed Asian was.

And so I do think Asian, I have the same concerns you do a little bit about, I think the whiteness eclipsing all of it, but I think it's good to have such a specific term to name a specific thing.

I think for me, I don't know.

Yeah.

And on the one hand, everything he said, I was like, yes, you are correct.

The W is speaking first.