A Personal Glimpse at Intersectionality
It was a beautiful day in Florence. My friend Julie, Chinese Canadian, and I, Vietnamese Canadian, had been travelling around France and Italy for over a week – sipping lattes near the Champs-Élysées, feasting on fresh pasta and gelato, and, unfortunately, being catcalled several times a day.
Toronto, our hometown, is far from perfect when it comes to street harassment, but Europe was a whole different story altogether. Street vendors shamelessly yelled at us and passers-by would press us for answers:
“Where are you from? Where are you really from? China? Korea? Japan? What language do you speak? What language do you speak at home?”
Although the first few days of this heckling had felt quite jarring, the routine had begun to feel more commonplace by the time we reached Florence. After all, the vast majority of people did not call to us out of rudeness or vulgarity, but more so out of curiosity and ignorance. While bothersome, the comments were typically non-threatening and easy to shrug off.
That particular day – incidentally one of the loveliest days of our trip – we were meeting up with a good friend, Aidan, who was studying in Florence for the month. After reuniting in front of the Pitti Palace, the three of us – armed with gelato – headed up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, through the Giardino dell'Iris, and finally ended in the Piazza Della Repubblica, where we were approached by a vendor.
“Beautiful ladies,” he said leeringly, dragging along a cart of sunglasses and kid’s toys. “Where are you from?”
“Canada,” we said in unison.
“Well, now, you look Canadian,” he pointed at Aidan, who is visibly white, then turned to Julie and I, “but where are you two from?”
Aidan looked shocked.
“Does that happen to you a lot?” she said when the man had left.
“Oh yeah,” said Julie. “All the time.”
“I get catcalled too,” said Aidan, “but never like that. It’s never about race.”
Until then, I had only ever understood intersectionality as a theoretical definition: the idea that many categories of identity – gender, sexuality, race, and more – act simultaneously, and as a result, discrimination also encompasses all these interrelated categories at once. But in a heartbeat, the wordy definition suddenly became personal.
Aidan, like all women, would continue to be catcalled and harassed on the street. But in North America, she would never have her race questioned, or her background doubted and dragged into the spotlight. For Julie and I, the vast majority of street harassment would start with and be dominated by a query of our Asian identity – gender and race inextricably linked and targeted in tandem. However, as able-bodied, cisgendered, heterosexual women, these aspects of our identity would never be probed.
Before going to Europe, I had always considered examples of racism, sexism, homophobia, and so forth, as separate incidents – many little fires, each targeted at a different form of discrimination. But just as identities are nuanced and layered, so too is discrimination. Each aspect compounds – all adding fuel to a much bigger fire – so that everyone experiences hate a little differently, and we can never assume to understand another’s experience.
Originally published on Project Boundless.