I was in the eighth grade when I first encountered a self-hating Asian. The person in question was a 1.5th generation Korean girl and one of the few other Asian students in my nearly all-white Canadian high school. Being (heterosexual) teenaged girls, we naturally spent a lot of our time together discussing cute boys. I can still remember her reaction when I mentioned that my long-time crush was the boy who sat in front of me during my after-school Chinese classes. “Oh, so he’s an Asian guy,” she said dismissively. Seeing the confused look on my face, she quickly added, “It’s just th
