Not American Enough

I know grading and posting are done with, but I just have to share an experience I had today with anyone who's going to read this.

So today I went back to my high school to see how I can get my IB score sent to the college I will be transferring to. The IB coordinator at our school was proctoring an IB examination. I didn't want to interrupt her and the whole entire class that was taking the test so I went to the my high school counselor to see if she can help me.

She told me that I have to talk to my IB coordinator about that so I told her the testing situation. She sort of laughed at me and told me "Oh, you're too Asian. You can walk in there. It's alright. You got to be more American."

My jaw just dropped when she told me that. I looked at her like "Are you serious?" That's the first time someone told me seriously that I'm not American enough.

I don't think she meant to be racist or mean, but the stereotype that Asians are timid while Americans are assertive is so normalized inside her head that she doesn't realized what she said was rather inappropriate. I don't think she would have made the same remark or even thought about such a thing if I was any other race.

So what was supposedly my personal character, timidity, became an attribute of my race. By the way, I do not think that it is considered timidity when I just want to be respectful to students who are taking a test they prepared two years for.

I think I've been a rather sheltered person throughout my life. I talked and discussed race in academic and friendly, social settings, but never really faced race so blatantly, so I was surprised when the incident happened. It's not that I don't know that stereotypes exist and people conform to them, it's just it has never been directed personally at me. It was an interesting experience to say the least and I just want to share it with you guys. What do you guys make of it? What is BEING American to you?