As I was growing up, my parents often shared stories about how they were bullied when they were my age, just for being Asian. My mom is Cambodian and my dad is “Wasian,” Chinese and white. Students teased them for their looks, their homemade lunches, and treated their traditional holidays as jokes.

I once asked my mom when I was little if she could pack me dumpling leftovers for lunch. “Yes,” she said with a surprised look, adding, “I would have never wanted to bring dumplings to school when I was your age because I would always get bullied for them. I’m glad times have changed.” 

At the time, I was confused. Whenever I brought a homemade Asian dish to school for lunch, I was happy to hear intriguing and curious questions from the other kids. It felt good to have my meal be popular and different from the Lunchables everyone else had.

Though times have changed, racism still continues. It just has a new face. Today, social media pretends to flatter our cultures in an insincere way trying to gain popularity just for clicks. Think anything from K-pop to Japan’s surge in international tourism. Even Starbucks has added drinks with the flavor of ube yam, native to the Philippines, onto its menu.

I feel that now when people see me, they don’t see me, they see a trend. 

For years, Asian people have been portrayed as foreign or exotic. The new embrace of foods and fashion at first felt good. Asians have never been represented as much as they’ve deserved. 

But this new popularity warps what non-Asians see. Instead of the blunt and direct racism my parents faced, everything now is a gray area, more discreetly hidden behind some TikTok video. It actually normalizes racism and stereotypes.

Whitewashing my culture 

As a 15-year-old Asian American who lives in D.C., I’ve always been one of the few Asian kids in school; my high school today counts less than 2 percent of students as being of Asian descent. I remember always being called “that one Asian girl” or some slur a kid learned from their parents. Every time I search for something related to Asian culture, such as a recipe or maybe a holiday, it’s always the same thing: some white person whitewashing my culture.

Social media is the main culprit, of course. I realized this when I entered high school and got a phone and was introduced to the internet. That is when I realized how messed up the new stereotypes around Asians are. 

One pattern I started to notice was people wanting to be Asian just because it was popular. It was hurtful, patronizing, and annoying. They made assumptions about our race and then only found us “cool” because we were trending. How can people go from hating us or finding us weird, to then only liking us because we’re popular?

There was a trend going around on TikTok called “race change to another” or RCTA.  It is this trend of people manifesting certain physical traits to change their appearance in order to change races. According to journalist Emi Tran, writing then as an intern for NBC Digital, the trend started when a white woman wanted to be Japanese. The woman began posting TikTok videos of herself wishing for different features such as monolids. Tran wrote in that 2023 article that “the overwhelming majority of the RCTA community wants to be East Asian.”

People also look up to K-pop culture, idolizing the pop groups pulled together by big entertainment companies. Most people expect all Koreans to be K-pop fans. Korean friends are asked about K-pop all the time even though they are not into the South Korean music genre.

Although I am not South Korean — I am half Cambodian and Chinese — I still get asked, almost like I’m expected, “You’re really into this group, right?” or “Can you tell me how to pronounce this member’s name?”

I was asked even worse questions during COVID-19. Suddenly, discrimination and violence were increasing specifically toward Asians everywhere. Suddenly, almost everyone was blaming Chinese people for spreading and causing COVID-19.

I remember going to school for one of the last times before quarantine had started and hearing kids whisper, “Oh, she’s going to give us the Coronavirus.” President Donald Trump had publicly posted his opinions about the situation on social media, blaming China for the pandemic, even calling it the “Chinese Virus” or the “Wuhan Virus.” According to NPR, anti-Asian hate crimes in U.S. cities surged 149 percent that year.

The topic of Asians in the media has always been complicated. One moment people can hate us for being weird and different and the next we’re suddenly popular and cool for the same reasons. 

I feel conflicted on whether I should feel happy that we’re being represented or angry that it’s all for the wrong reason and has the wrong effects.

Lily Brugman is a sophomore at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, one of Youthcast Media Group’s journalism class partners. She worked with YMG volunteer and Professor Emerita in journalism at American University Amy Eisman on this piece.

The wife of D.C. attorney Robert Wone, who was found stabbed to death on Aug. 2, 2006, in the Dupont Circle area home of three gay men, has filed a complaint in court accusing two of the men of failing to make the payments they promised to make to settle a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit the wife filed against them  in 2008.

The court filings in D.C. Superior Court in May of this year by Katherine Wone provide new details of the lawsuit settlement related to a 20-year-old murder case that observers have compared to a murder mystery novel involving three gay men and the fatal stabbing of their friend whose wife insists was straight.

Court records and D.C. police reports show that Robert Wone was said to  have arrived at the townhouse of his long-time college friend Joe Price after spending all day and part of the night working late at his downtown office at Radio Free Asia.

Price, a gay rights attorney at that time associated with the LGBTQ group Equality Virginia, and his partner Victor Zaborsky and their housemate Dylan Ward – who were also friends of Wone – said later that they invited Wone to spend the night in their guest bedroom so he wouldn’t have to drive home to Oakton, Va., where he and his wife lived, before having to return to work in D.C. the next morning.

Court records show that later that night D.C. police responded to a 911 emergency call made by Zaborsky to the gay men’s house at 1509 Swann Street, N.W. and found Wone stabbed to death on what appeared to be a neatly arranged bed.

The three men told police they were certain an intruder entered the house and stabbed Wone while they were asleep in their bedrooms. But homicide detectives reported that the crime scene appeared to have been cleaned up and possible evidence tampered with.

After the investigation dragged on for more than two years, prosecutors obtained an indictment against the three men on charges of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and evidence tampering in connection with the Wone murder. No murder-related charges were brought, prompting legal observers to conclude that authorities didn’t have sufficient evidence to charge the men with murder.

But a detailed arrest affidavit filed and released at the time the charges were brought against the three gay men startled those who knew them and created a sensation in the surrounding community, especially the LGBTQ community.

Among other things, it said autopsy findings and physical evidence indicated that Wone had been restrained or immobilized by a paralytic drug before being stabbed. It said three stab wounds on Wone’s chest and abdomen were surgical in nature, with no indication that Wone moved or tried to defend himself while being stabbed.

In addition, the affidavit said the autopsy found needle marks on Wone’s body that were not made by emergency medical technicians that arrived on the scene and examined Wone. 

At the advice of their attorneys, the three men chose to wave their right to a jury trial and requested that Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz preside over the trial and render the verdict. Following testimony by expert witnesses on both sides, after the men chose not to testify, and dramatic closing arguments by prosecutors and the defense attorneys, the judge found the men not guilty on all three charges. 

In a lengthy written verdict, she read from the bench, Leibovitz said while she believed there was significant evidence implicating the defendants, there continued to be reasonable doubt on all charges against them. However, she said she did find that prosecutors established beyond probable cause that Wone was not murdered by an intruder who entered the house while the three men were asleep.

“Nevertheless, after lengthy analysis of the evidence, I conclude that the government has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of obstruction of justice or evidence tampering,” Leibovitz said in delivering her verdict.  

While greatly relieved by the not guilty verdict, Price, Zaborsky, and Ward were still facing a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit that Katherine Wone filed against them prior to their criminal trial. As the two sides prepared for a civil trial the defense team announced the three gay men would invoke their Fifth Amendment constitutional right to refuse to testify at the civil trial on grounds that their testimony could lead to self-incrimination.

Possibly because of that or other reasons, Katherine Wone announced that she and the three men had reached an out of court monetary settlement of the lawsuit, the terms of which would not be publicly disclosed. 

In her recent court filings in May on behalf of the Estate of Robert Wone, which were filed against Price and Zaborsky but not against Ward, Katherine Wone charges the two men with failing to pay thousands of dollars as part of the settlement agreement. Separate complaints she filed against them disclose for the first time that Price had agreed to an $80,000 settlement amount in 2011 to be paid through monthly installments over the next 20 years.  

The non-payment complaint filed against Zaborsky by Wone states that he had agreed to a settlement in 2011 of $66,000 also to be paid over 20 years in 240 monthly payments. 

Although the initially filed $20 million lawsuit also named Dylan Ward as a defendant, court records do not show any complaint filing against Ward for nonpayment, leading some observers to speculate that Ward may have already paid the full sum of whatever amount Wone’s lawsuit sought from him. 

The Washington Post has reported that court filings show that as of May 29 of this year, Price owed $56,893.75 and Zaborsky owed $31,753.75 in missed payments and bounced checks plus fees and interest.

The two complaints filed by Wone against the two men also state that the settlement agreement they signed allows the Wone estate to call for the “immediate” payment of the entire amount they agreed to pay if they default on their monthly payments.  

Court records show that a “remote scheduling conference” before a debt collection judge was scheduled to take place in D.C. Superior Court on Sept. 22.           

Price, Zaborsky, and Ward have declined to respond to press inquiries including inquiries from the Washington Blade regarding the criminal trial and lawsuit. The non-payment complaints filed by  Katherine Wone show that Price’s current residence is in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. and Zaborsky now resides in Tamarac, Fla.

News of the latest complaints filed against Price and Zaborsky for nonpayment of the lawsuit settlement payments was first reported on Aug. 2 by the website called Who Murdered Robert Wone, which was created by four gay men shortly after Wone’s 2006 murder.

“We’re left to wonder if the threesome, or whoever remains of it now, will ever come clean on what they know and may have done,” Craig Brownstein, one of the men who created the website stated in the Aug. 2 posting. “The optimists will hope for a confession of some sort, an explanation, the pessimists are convinced they’ll take their secrets to the grave,” Brownstein wrote. “Time will tell.”

Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s LGBTQ supportive healthcare center and medical clinic, is calling on D.C. residents and supporters to take part in its 40th annual Walk & 5K Run to End HIV scheduled to take place Saturday, Sept. 19.

The event, in which participants choose to walk or run, begins at 8:45 a.m. at the Roller Skating Pavilion at Anacostia Park located at 1500 Anacostia Drive, S.E. 

The route, similar to recent years, will take participants from the Skating Pavilion site going west along Anacostia Drive to the Poplar Point parking lot, where there will be a turn around to return along Anacostia Drive to the finish line at the Roller Skating Pavilion, according to Whitman-Walker spokesperson Lisa Amore.  

“Held for the past 40 years, the Walk & 5K to End HIV is Whitman-Walker Health’s signature fundraiser that calls on thousands of Washington, D.C. area residents to lace up their shoes and walk or run to support WWH’s mission of providing dependable, high-quality, comprehensive and accessible health care to those living with or affected by HIV/AIDS,” a statement released by Whitman-Walker says.

The statement says that at the completion of the walk and run, a stage program with live entertainment and family activities, including free snacks and drinks, will take place at the Anacostia Park Skating Pavilion from 9:30-11 a.m.

It says a free shuttle bus will be available to take participants from and to the Anacostia Metro station before and after the event takes place.

Among the event’s goals are “mobilizing attendees to walk and donate to sustain independent policy research, as well as raise their voices by contacting elected officials to protect the national commitment to end HIV by 2030,” the statement says. It adds that all donations are fully tax deductible and supporter checks should be made payable to Whitman-Walker Foundation.

Further information and registration for the walk and run can be accessed at www.walktoendHIV.org.