Walking through the streets of New York, it’s hard not to notice men’s infatuation with my skin color, my difference, my “exoticness.”
Growing up, I reveled in my exoticness. I liked sticking out from the crowd. I liked being perceived as different. And frankly, I often viewed my exotification as a compliment. Today, it amazes me how I had been socialized into believing that being "othered" due to my exterior appearance was a form of approval.
To put it blankly, exotification is not okay. It is a form of alienation. It is a form of othering. It is a form of racism.
Every time someone reminds me that “I’m so exotic,” they are reducing me to less than them, less than human, and less real. I am not a pretty mantel to put on a pedestal. I’m a person.
Through my history classes, I’ve learned how women of color have continuously been subjected to sexual oppression and objectification. Through exotification, there exists a physical and ideological distance between the "exotifier" and the "exotifiee." It symbolizes how we cannot occupy the same space or be treated as equal.
While there are many issues surrounding exotification -- from creating one standard of beauty to violence against exotic bodies -- the issue I face day to day is the one-dimensionalizing and dehumanization. I am often reduced to the caricature of the quiet, sweet, conservative South Asian woman.
Here’s a wake-up call. I am complex. I am loud. I am more than the color of my skin. And I don’t need the approval; I have plenty of self-validation.
