Rocking the Boat: A Call for Asian American and Pacific Islander Counselors to Make Waves Available to Purchase

I was in my mid-20s when I realized I was not white. Somewhere along the line, I had fooled myself into believing that my Filipina and Chinese identity was a passport to whiteness. The conditionality of my American identity became even more salient following the onslaught of anti-Asian rhetoric and COVID-19 racial discrimination that echoed the yellow peril myth from the late 19^th century (Litam, 2020). On more than one occasion, I was told to go back to China. On several occasions, I was followed, shunned, or denied service. These experiences ripped away the illusion that my proximity to whiteness left me immune to racial discrimination.

I received the same messages that many Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) individuals internalize from their families. “Don’t rock the boat.” “Keep your head down.” “Don’t make waves.” As a foreign-born Filipina woman, I also inherited a colonial mentality that...