Ideal Beauty Standards Essay

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Being discriminated against in a foreign country is common and to some extent, expected. However being discriminated against in your native country is unpredictable. My parents are Both immigrants who came to America after the Vietnam War. After the American occupation of Vietnam ended, the communist regime took over and their lives became significantly harder due to their freedom being taken away. Even though the war between America and Vietnam had ended, the war against communism in Vietnam was ongoing. To escape the restraints that the communist regime had placed on them, they escaped to America. Life in America was not any easier for them due to the language barrier, but they pushed through it and had me, a second-generation immigrant.…show more content…
The ideal beauty standards are fair skin, thin and tall bodies, and flawless skin, which are what many koreans are. Many Vietnamese females and males strived to become similar to Koreans, as they were considered the most attractive. Furthermore, in asia, appearances bring honor and represent the family. In other words, appearances can be the breadwinner of the family. Thus, the way a person looks will tell others their entire personality. Due to how dissimilar I was to the ideal beauty standards, I received heavy criticism. The criticisms initially did not bother me quite that much as I understood that I was not very pale and nor was I very thin. However, the criticisms got to my parents and that led to them criticizing me. When my parents began harping on me to cover up and eat less, I began to really take these criticisms to heart. For the rest of the trip, it was constant nagging to cover up my arms and to wear oversized hats. Every relative I would meet, the first thing they would comment on is my skin tone and my weight. However, I was not the only one that was experiencing discomfort each time, my parents felt the same as well as ashamed of me. They would make up excuses for my skin, saying I fell asleep at the pool. It was heartbreaking for me to visually see how much my appearance affected my parents. It was then that I fully understood what beauty meant to Asians. I felt like a disgrace to my family because of how different I appeared to the norms in
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