I don’t know if it is because of my ethnicity, how I was raised, genetics, the food I ate or fate, but I have big shoulders. What does that mean? It means that my physical back and shoulders are (I believe) not proportional to the rest of my body. Now I don’t mean that I am some kind of hulk where if you get me angry I am suddenly going to rip out of my shirt and turn green, but having broad shoulders has been something I have had to live with my entire life. I was never a swimmer or dancer, so I am not able to blame that for how I am built and I am not morbidly obese (at least I hope not). I just simply have broad shoulders and a bigger back, and I think I finally know what that means.

For eighteen years now my mom has always told me how my body is “solid” and it is obvious when I look into a mirror that my shoulders are big. So that has meant that I have been a bit insecure. I buy bigger sizes in clothes just so I won’t draw attention to them and even though my friends growing up were the same general shape, height, and size as me, I wasn’t able to borrow their clothes because I didn’t want my back to stand out. I look horrible in any bathing suit and I have to get the right dress type that flatters me, meaning no strapless, spaghetti strap, or tight fitting really in general. My chest is bigger and I hunch over more, all because of my big shoulders.

I’ve been thinking more lately on what having big shoulders mean to me and other than the fashion issues I feel like I can use my big shoulders as a sort of metaphor in my life. Because of my big shoulders I have never let anything get in my way of being me. I’ve been bullied and discriminated more times than I like to think about growing up for how I look, how I dress, how I act, and how I think. My peers never felt like I deserved anything that happened to me. When I received opportunities of leadership in my community my “friends” would always make excuses of why I did not earn them because of my family or because I was supposedly the teacher’s pet. The arts were a different story. Whenever I would win any awards in music, art, or anything fine arts they would always credit my ethnicity. My classmates used to imitate what they thought was fast talking Chinese as I walked down the halls and would never allow me to feel like I earned my awards because they would always tell me I only received it because I was Asian.

The worst is when it comes to math. Math is my passion and I love everything about it, but as I got to high school it became harder which is usual. So when I would not do my best on a test or could not completely understand a concept my classmates would say something that was either, “Yes! I did better than the Asian!” or “Come on, Cas, you are Asian, how do you not understand this?” It was not fair and it hurt, but being in high school I did not want to draw attention to my problems or else the situations got worse. I hated being the token Asian in everything I did, but I ended up just brushing it off. I would go along with it, laugh right with them, and tell my mom it was no big deal, having big shoulders I was able to do that (metaphorically, of course, not physically). I thrived so I could become better than their assumptions of me and it actually lead me to where I am today, as a math major. I love math because it creates these amazing different things and patterns and it never ceases to amaze me, not because I am Asian and supposed to be good at it. I have learned how to use my big shoulders as my advantage when it came to things like this. They are an indication of how I have fought hard to be where I am today, an incentive to remember I should not let anything get me down, and most importantly, a reminder to always be me for me.

Having big shoulders is going to be something I am going to have to deal with forever. It means I will probably never wear a halter-top and will look like the hunch back of Notre Dame in most of my pictures, but it will also mean that I will have a bigger reminder of how strong I am. Even if I have to go through more obstacles than others do, I will not ever let my negative peers or anything else get in the way of accomplishing my goals and dreams. I will simply just let brush it off my shoulders and keep moving forward. My shoulders will keep getting bigger as I get older and now I know that that is not necessarily a bad thing.