Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s and '80s, I sought to belong.
But before that, my family moved around a lot because my dad was in the U.S. Navy. It was difficult to make friends, especially for the shy kid that I was.
Dean Caparaz
When we moved to Northern California for good, I, as a Filipino American, naturally gravitated toward other people of color. My neighborhood on the east side of San Jose was pretty diverse, with many Asian and Latino families.
Despite the diversity, I heard my share of racial slurs directed at me in school, particularly from bullies who thought I was Chinese (and thought that was a bad thing). As I was usually one of the shortest kids around, I had to slough it off and move on.
During my junior year at Independence High School, I discovered that I loved to write, and whether I was writing an essay on "As I Lay Dying" or writing an article for the school newspaper, it didn't matter. I definitely preferred writing to typesetting, which I also did in high school.
When I later told friends, family and teachers that I was going to UC Berkeley, many had the same reaction, perhaps influenced by Cal's reputation and my ethnicity: "Are you going to major in engineering?" I felt I disappointed them when I said I was going to major in English.
Maybe they bought into the model-minority stereotype. And in this sexist version of the stereotype, not only did Asian-American kids have to be great students, but male Asian Americans also had to excel in math and the sciences.
Perhaps I bought into the stereotype, too. In fact, when "60 Minutes" came to my high school to shoot a story on four classmates who were succeeding academically – after emigrating from southeast Asia to the Bay Area after the Vietnam War – I envied them. They were celebrated for pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to do well in the classroom in a new country and speak a new language. What was wrong with that? I was a good student – and I was polite, quiet, hard-working, etc. – but, since I was a native Californian, Mike Wallace didn't want to interview me.
I gradually outgrew those superficial notions and understood the stereotype for what it was. Being a young Asian American wasn't all about studying, learning to play an instrument and getting into the best college. We had lives and loves, and we weren't always good students.
While I was grateful that my parents didn't put undue pressure on me to succeed academically, some of my classmates weren't as lucky. One of my friends celebrated by "60 Minutes" had a distinctly tough time dealing with such pressures in college, and I wish I'd been a better friend to her then.
My own college experience at Cal was challenging and occasionally agonizing, yet wonderful. One of the experiences I enjoyed most was writing for The Daily Californian. In the end I realized that maybe my fate didn't include writing the next great American novel and that perhaps I should instead pursue a burgeoning passion for writing about sports.
Sports writing led me to jobs and to people with whom I belonged – first with Soccer America magazine and then with Cal Athletics – and most of them I found in Berkeley.
As I consider my journey, particularly during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I know that I still have a lot to learn about my family's culture and the myriad of other AAPI groups in the world. Just as I seek to enlighten myself, I want to educate my colleagues and friends about the many rich and diverse cultures that we have to offer. I'm proud of the content that a small group of us in Athletics is creating to do just that, and I hope to write more stories to celebrate our many AAPI student-athletes, coaches, staff and alums. I am grateful to do this work and to collaborate with a new circle of colleagues, though perhaps next year I'll be part of a larger group that will take on this challenge.
While writing is my thing, I've never been much of a blogger, so I appreciate anyone who has taken the time to read this.
Salamat po.
