“Asians are the scums of the earth!”

The voice came from the vicinity of bench table one, closest to the door of the restaurant. I was seated at bench table two, directly behind them. Our tables were against the wall and the seats of each table were joined at the backs. My ears immediately pricked up when I heard that blatant claim. At my table, my dining companions’ chatter stilled. The voice was female, of American accent and the comment was followed by laughter and conversation of what seemed like four women of similar vocal attributes – loud, and to my ears, exaggerated and dare I say, seemingly ‘light’ in intellectual capacity.

Their gushing and exclaiming continued and faded from my awareness as I could not make sense of any ‘supporting’ statements to back the first arrogant statement I had overheard.

Emotions were stirring in me. The strongest being a sense of indignation and a hurt sense of pride, together with discontent at the speaker. Thoughts were running through my head and the rational mind quickly soothed my ruffled feathers somewhat – it could really mean nothing, one carelessly thrown comment in a sea of other ‘light’ talk.

Yet it could have meant something, a tiny troubled voice pressed on.

It was then a visual image flashed in my mind; I recalled it then, the faces of the inhabitants of table one. As I walked past table one to be seated, two Asian faces looked up and gave my companions and I a once-over. It was not a friendly smile that concluded the scrutiny, but a dismissive, barely noticeable tilt of chins. I felt it then – the unfriendly vibes of the confident women of table one as we moved past to take our seats.

My companions and I were horrified at the revelation that the speaker was an Asian. It was clear as the daylight that shone in through the pretty windows. I felt my excitement and happiness of awaiting good food cool. How could she have uttered such an abusive statement about her own ‘kind’?

What makes an Asian woman of mature years (For the ages of the women appeared to be from late twenties to the early forties) insult her own race? Youth of age could not excuse them. Her laughter rang in my head, more obscene and outrageous than before.

What makes a person turn against his or her own? Even accepting that these women did not mean what they had said, such things do happen – throughout the history of mankind – and for various ‘groups’ like gender and sexuality. In other cases, violent homophobic men are linked to having homosexual feelings themselves, and one third of children abused grow up to be domestic abusers themselves.

For a person to develop a feeling of belonging to one group and a feeling of ‘others’ VS ‘us’, she needs to first have an identity. Most of us have multiple identities, with some identities being more important to us than the others, some identities being expressed in certain situations more than in others. For example, when I see a man hitting a woman, my identity as female comes into play more strongly than any other identity. Although I may be a Chinese taught to mind my own business, or a Singaporean accustomed to non-meddling, my identity as a woman is more salient to me than any of these, and I have no doubt I will not close one eye.

For the inhabitant of table one, although she belongs in the group of ‘Asian’ by birth, she probably does not identify with this category very much, explaining her seemingly ‘banana’ behaviour. She is likely to identify as ‘American’ and see ‘Asian’ as being the non-American Asians – a group she does not identify with.

It is apparent that socialization (societal influences) and not our physical/ biological attributes, is what determines our identities and their degree of importance.

In the past peoples’ socialization were largely determined by their race and/or ethnicity. Today with globalisation and the technological advances, we are inter-mixing our cultures like never before. More than ever, a person can not be judged by his cover. Looking Asian tells us nothing of what the inhabitant of table one is like.

Technically, skin colour (and other physical attributes) should not matter. In today’s age, we should be able to look beyond racial and gender differences right? Yet why did I feel that bit more upset that the inhabitant of table one was Asian? Is this a betrayal, and any more despicable than if the inhabitant was of another race? We know people ‘turn against’ their own ‘group’ because of the strength of identity expression. But in today’s global and equal ideal, should we even be discussing race and gender, or is the individual identity the only thing that matters now? Should I be unhappy at the inhabitant of table one for criticizing Asians, or should I be unhappy at the Asian at table one for criticizing her own race?

Nina is a 3rd year sociology student currently on exchange at University of California, San Diego.