Privileges and prejudices are not exactly the freshest topic of the day. I never put myself in this conversation.

I was born and raised in China, in a middle-income family. I’ve experienced my fair share of hardship in life: family drama, financial difficulties, mental health challenges. Coming all the way to the States for college isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do in the world also. But, my purpose today is not to whine about how hard my life has been.

I never consciously put myself in the “privileged” category. I mean, I never lived in a multiple-story house, or had countless money to spend, or enjoyed a painless childhood. Nevertheless, I understand that going to college in a foreign country is, in itself, a privilege already.

Other than that, I’d say my life in the States has been quite peaceful. I didn’t think I was ever outwardly discriminated against or given privileges. A phone call I had today, however, dumped a bucket of cold water in my face. I suddenly recognized a privilege I’ve been enjoying since day one in America that I wasn’t even aware of.

Here’s what happened: I had an allergic reaction (i.e., hives on my face) to I don’t know what food yesterday. Wanting to know what caused the reaction for future reference, I went to the student health center for a check-up.

The physician there referred me to USC Medical Center on the Health Science Campus, so I gave the Medical Center a call to set up appointment during lunch. A woman picked up the phone. I don’t know how many phone calls she’d had so far or how many times she’d repeated the same responses, but she was speaking so fast that all her words basically glued together. I might as well call it a pot of audio jambalaya.

After acquiring some of my basic information, she apparently found my student record (which inevitably includes my Chinese name and possibly my nationality). She then asked me a question that I didn’t hear clearly. I’ll give you that I was chewing my lunch, which might have influenced my ability to hear her through the phone, but she mumbled all her words as she’d been doing for the past minute. I just couldn’t understand her. I hate to ask people to repeat themselves, so I apologized, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

Almost without hesitation, she said, “Besides English, what’s the other language you speak?” I stopped chewing my food. Why would she ask this? I don’t think it has anything to do with me needing to make an appointment with the allergist.

“Ugh… Chinese.” I replied anyway.

“Okay, wait a second.” And I was put on hold, listening to classical waiting music (if you’ve ever been put on hold by customer service, you know this music is the sound of waiting/boredom).

About a minute later, someone else picked up the phone and spoke in almost the same insane speed as the first lady. Except for this lady is speaking in Cantonese. So many thoughts and emotions went through my mind in a split second. Humiliation, frustration, and disbelief. I paused a couple seconds when the lady speaking Cantonese finished her routine greeting because I don’t speak Cantonese!

True, Cantonese is Chinese. But so is Mandarin, Shanghainese, Sichuanese, and so many other dialects spoken in China! Then, I decided to not make a fool of myself trying to respond in Cantonese, but simply try to explain my reason for calling in Mandarin, which is the kind of Chinese I actually speak.

The lady on the other end sounded very hesitant after hearing me out, “Ugh… Do you understand Cantonese?” Apparently, she doesn’t speak Mandarin!

“Oh, yes!” I replied in English, thanking God for giving me a Cantonese mom so I can at least understand the language.

Then, the Cantonese lady explained the situation to me in half Cantonese and half English: the referral usually takes two to three days to go through, and the physician only wanted me to call the Medical Center to give them a heads-up, so they will be expecting a referral coming for me.

“Oh okay, sweet! So…I don’t have to call you to make an appointment?” I asked in English.

“Yeah, no. We’ll call you to set up an appointment, once we receive the referral. You don’t have to do anything.” The Cantonese speaking lady replied also in English, and apparently much more fluent than when she tried to use half English and half Cantonese.

Hanging up the phone, all the feelings – humiliation, frustration, and disbelief – came back again. The first lady I talked to (1) assumed I couldn’t understand her because English is not my first language instead of realizing how insanely fast she was talking, and (2) assumed Chinese is just one language instead of recognizing Chinese as a collection of languages. I don’t want to put any label on her, but her lack of introspection and insensitivity really bothered me. Though this is not a pleasant experience, it was a very teachable incident for me.

Up till today, I’ve never experienced any form of discrimination against me since I arrived in the US in 2014. As a result, I’ve never thought about how my ability to speak English fluently actually granted me a lot of privileges.

Ever since I got here, I constantly hear people telling me, with mouth ajar and eyes wide open, “Wow, you speak English really well. I could hardly tell you’re an international student.” I always respond with a smile and never give it any second thoughts. But today, I suddenly realized, because of my fairly well English, I’ve never had to dealt with things like: being treated as if I couldn’t understand English, being looked down upon because of my nationality, and so many more.

Freshman year, one of my Chinese suitemates told me that, she hates this school because her TA is a racist. According to her, the TA gave extra points to a white blonde girl but not her, even though they gave the same answer. In the moment, I thought she was just being dramatic. None of my TAs ever did this to me, how can her TA discriminate against her? She must be too sensitive.

However, now looking back, she was probably telling the truth. I have to acknowledge that my fluent English probably implicitly gave me slight advantages compared to other Chinese students throughout my college career since almost no one in a class setting could tell I’m an international student by simply talking to me. I was blind to what other Chinese students might be going through.

For so many other Chinese students like this suitemate of mine, their broken English with heavy accents probably gave their nationality away as soon as they start talking. As a result, they have to deal with people look at them or even treat them differently, like what my suitemate’s TA did to her.

I’m not here to accuse any individual. I’m also not here to say that if someone truly cannot understand English, you should still talk to them and try to explain yourself in English. The first lady I talked to today probably had a long day and didn’t even realize what she did was insensitive.

However, I now recognized my privilege in such simple thing as speaking English well. I can truly understand why some Chinese students (or any non-English speaking individuals) say that they feel discriminated against. Discrimination or bias is not always obvious and aggressive. I simply want to call attention to how people, especially native English speakers since we’re in the US, interact with non-English speakers.

Everybody makes mistakes, but it should not be your excuse to be mindless while interacting with non-English speakers and assume that they don’t understand you simply because they don’t understand English. Try to be more conscious and learn more about their culture the next time you interact with someone of a different cultural background. It’s not that hard. You don’t have to know everything. As someone of non-English speaking background, I can tell you: genuine curiosity and humbleness will do the trick.