I've received conflicting messages about my eyes throughout my life: My Taiwanese grandma told me to lift the corners upwards to encourage the slant of my "phoenix eye". Meanwhile, my Asian peers on the playground would stretch the skin around their eyes, hoping to disprove the "squinty Asian" archetype. Hell, even my parents would tell me to open my eyes more for pictures. It was frustrating how Western beauty standards were being boldly applied to people internationally. We’ve been subjected to the Sisyphean task of measuring up to Western ideals as people of color, starting from something as trivial as how our eyes look. In grayscale, I’ve depicted myself slanting/stretching my eyes while the large eyes are in their natural state. The faint blue background eyes depict me forcing my eyes to be wider (they’re faint because I’m trying to leave that in the past). The colored hands are me in the present reaching out to pry away the grayscale hands that once attempted to manipulate how I look. The dark green smiling eyes I hold close to my person to illustrate how I’m choosing happiness over the upset of trying to change myself to appease any ideals. I realized that my eyes are just that: eyes. So, to the oppressors I say, “My eyes are open– it’s your turn”.
In a time where our differences, more than ever in recent history, are being used to denote groups of people as “the others,” it’s crucial to be aware of how even seemingly insignificant things can be wielded against us. Nowadays, I’m constantly reminded that systemic oppression is very much alive and working– as long as the system works in the sole service of those in power, the rest of us will continue feeling inferior and scared. Is it not then natural for people to want to erase their ethnic features so they can hope to be better served by this country? My piece dedicates itself to resistance against oppression by showing how realizing the injustices is the first step toward making political change.
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