The saying, "Everyone's Irish on Saint Patrick's Day!" is something I've never understood. 🍀 Like many American households, every year on March 17th, my family has corned beef & cabbage for dinner. A dish my mom has forced me to eat on this particular day ever since I was a little girl that I can barely manage to stomach. Corned beef is pretty terrible itself, but the cabbage is even worse because I can't eat it without feeling sick. Autistic people tend to be finicky eaters, often being overly sensitive to the textures & the flavors of the food they eat. This has been an uphill battle that I have been fighting my whole life. I had a disagreement with my mom about my feelings regarding corned beef & cabbage last year. "Why do we have to eat corned beef & cabbage on Saint Patrick's Day if we're NOT Irish?" I said to her. "But, we ARE Irish because everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick's Day!" my mom exclaimed. "If everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick's Day, then how come everyone isn't Asian on the Lunar New Year?" I asked, truly curious. I love the Lunar New Year because it means eating delicious dumplings & noodles, celebrating my Chinese heritage, & dressing my dog up in a fancy silk Chinese jacket. "Because being Asian isn't fun. If you're not Irish on Saint Patrick's Day, you're not American." my mom said to me. I knew my mom was right because most people don't think being Asian is fun. We're discriminated against, too. "Well, then I guess I'm not American," I said glumly. I was hurt by this because I've always been proud to be an American. But, how does being American require me to be Irish on Saint Patrick's Day if I'm not Irish? I'm autistic, which means I am literal & I just don't understand how someone can be Irish on one particular day of the year if (s)he isn't actually Irish. 🤷🏻♀️ When you think of Saint Patrick's Day, you probably think of glittered shamrocks 🍀, green beer 🍻, green rivers, leprechauns, &, of course, corned beef & cabbage. Well, what if I told you that if you were actually in Ireland on Saint Patrick's Day 🇮🇪, you wouldn't see ANY of those things, except for maybe the glittered shamrocks? Yes, this is absolutely true. To begin, leprechauns are not cute, jolly, friendly cereal box characters that we all imagine that they are. But, they are mischievous, nasty little fellows that Irish people do not want partaking in their Saint Patrick's Day festivities. And just as much as the Irish would not pollute their beer or their rivers with green dye, they would not eat corned beef & cabbage, especially on Saint Patrick’s Day.
The History Of Corned Beef & Cabbage: In Ireland 🇮🇪, cows 🐮 have always been a symbol of wealth & were considered a sacred animal. In fact, from early on in Irish history, cattle were not used for their meat, but they were used for milk & dairy production & farming. Because they were so sacred & expensive, cows were only killed for their meat if they were too old to work or to produce milk. So, beef is not part of the diet for the majority of the Irish population & is typically only enjoyed by the very wealthy during a celebration or festival. In both historic & in modern Ireland, pigs are the most prevalent animal bred only to be eaten, so pork is the most eaten meat in Ireland. When the Irish immigrated to the United States, they often faced discrimination & lived in slums with the Jews & the Italians. In contrast to in Ireland, beef was inexpensive in the United States. When the Irish immigrants first tasted corned beef at Jewish delis, they noticed its similarity to Irish bacon. They paired it with cabbage for its cost efficiency. So, eating corned beef & cabbage is NOT an Irish tradition. It is an Irish immigrant tradition that was created right here, in America when Irish immigrants substituted beef for pork & cabbage for potatoes because of its affordability. Some Fun Saint Patrick's Day Facts:
Side Note: Until I sat down to write this blog post, I didn't know any of the above facts with the exception of the corned beef & cabbage one. For YEARS, I have tried to convince my mom to forgo the dreadful corned beef & cabbage meal because it isn't actually an Irish tradition, but sadly, it has never worked. 🤷🏻♀️ So, whether you're Irish on Saint Patrick's Day or you're Irish the whole year through, Happy Saint Patrick's Day! And if you're NOT Irish on Saint Patrick's Day or on any other day of the year, I feel your pain. 💚
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With today being the Lunar New Year (the year of the dragon!), I just wanted spend this blog post telling you about Asian culture & autism. My mom's side of the family is of Chinese descent & while I definitely have had an American upbringing, Asian culture has had great influence over the way I was raised. In the Asian culture, you are taught from a very young age that all of your personal difficulties are to remain inside of the home. In fact, if you were to be open about your challenges in public, you would likely be thought of as a disgrace. Unfortunately, the majority of Asian Americans still have this mindset to this day. One of the times my mom taught me about this was when she talked to me about hiding the bottles of antidepressants that I was taking before my grandparents arrived for a visit (particularly because of my grandpa's background in pharmacology) in order to prevent questioning & criticism. Moments like these are probably why I have always been more comfortable confiding in my dad than my mom, both as a child & as an adult. I have always felt like the fact that I have had lifelong mental health difficulties, & now autism, is something to be ashamed of because in the Asian culture it is. Another example of this occurred many, many years ago when my grandparents took my mom & my aunt on a tour of China. I remember my mom telling me that everyone wanted to take pictures with a person in their tour group who was using crutches. The reason why? If you're using crutches or a wheelchair in China, you generally don't leave your home. So, that's not something you ever see out on public streets. Asian Americans love to pride themselves in (& even brag about) which colleges & universities they got into & their SAT scores & then later on, how successful their careers are. I remember my grandma telling me about a time in school when she cried (something I have never seen her do EVER) because she got a 98 on a test. I can't picture myself ever crying over a 98. In Asia, when students don't do well on a test, even if it was the entire class that didn't do well, it is never the teacher's fault. It is never because the teacher didn't teach the material well enough or the test was written poorly, for example. It is always because the student didn't study hard enough. When a child has a disability that makes achieving the types of academic & professional successes that Asian people strive for much more difficult, such as autism, it poses a very significant problem for the child & her or his family. Asian Americans don't have any issues asking for help when it comes to furthering their child's academics or career, but when it comes to autism, they tend to refuse help & then the child is left to suffer alone, in silence. When children are diagnosed with autism in China, they are often sent to costly private treatment centers for ABA therapy. However, while this type of therapy is the most common type of therapy for autistic children, it is an extremely traumatic type of conversion "therapy" that essentially teaches autistic children to act in ways that make allistic, or non-autistic people more comfortable. Children who have received this type of therapy often develop post traumatic stress disorder by the time they reach adulthood.
Sadly, autism is still a relatively new condition in the Asian community, with China first recognizing it as a neurological disability as recently as 2006. In fact, many Asians have heard about autistic non-Asians, but they've never encountered an autistic Asian before. This is because less than one percent of autistic Asians have been evaluated for autism, let alone are receiving support for it. The thought that ninety-nine percent of autistic Asians are undiagnosed is quite staggering. Asians are likely not diagnosed with autism because they are afraid of being a disappointment, something I felt that I was until shortly before my thirty-second birthday, when I learned that I was autistic. |
AuthorHello! My name is Kim, I didn't know I was autistic until I was in my thirties, & this is my story. Categories
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