Are Asians Perennial Adolescents 5

One time in my life, when I was about 18 or 19, I myself became very attracted to Japanese Fascism.

I was very sick of life in America. I had grown up mainly with Caucasians. As I've said before, I had felt really at home in Narberth, Pennsylvania. The predominantly Jewish-American community was very understanding and kind. I really felt accepted by them. America had become a home for me. Afterward, at the Hill School, I wanted to recapture the same kind of homely atmosphere. It became clear to me that my sense of humor was not appreciated. It became clear to me that I was smaller and less attractive than most Caucasians. At a dance, I was trying desperately to find a partner. It wasn't this way at Narberth.

At first, I thought there was something wrong with me. Socially, I felt so hurt inside. The kind of personality that I had formed in the Jewish-American society... funny, kind and sort of poetic was no longer valid in the mainly WASP dominated society of the Hill School.

When I moved down South, I think I even tried harder to fit in. The more and more I tried to fit in, the sillier and more strange I became. More than anything, I think what hurt me the most was the sense I got that I was sexually inferior to whites. This touched something primal in me. It's not like I wanted to be James Bond or anything. Sometimes, I was attracted to Caucasian girls. One girl that I was interested in... she reignited my interest in poetry. I really just liked her, and as in my adolescence, she ignited a spiritual fire within me. But as soon as I began to like her, my best friend liked her and a whole host of other people liked her. It was just fucking amazing. I guess they were trying to tell me that the only reason she took an interest in me was because they had not shown her enough appreciation. I think that's when I began to hate the Americans and gradually I began to conclude that the WASPS were at the top of the Caucasian food chain.

One other Caucasian girl that I dated... when her mother saw me and her daughter hug, she had this horrified expression on her face. I never dated her again. At the same time, I didn't date her for the best intentions... I think I blamed Caucasian girls for the ways that Caucasian boys protected them. Maybe I was planning to do something wicked to her.

To continue, over time, I began to really like the German Fascists. I secretly convinced myself that Germans were the most Asian of all the Western races. What I especially liked about the Germans was that they had almost destroyed England, which I saw as the land of the WASPS. I even concluded that it would have been better if Germany and Japan had taken over the world. At least, things would have been clearer, at least all this bullshit nicetalk would end... at least I would know where people stood.

I read excitedly about Japan. I read about how they were the first Eastern power to defeat a Western power, Russia. I read about how Theodore Roosevelt and Carl Gustav Jung admired the Japanese. High School textbooks spoke admiringly of Japan. Yukio Mishima, a conservative Japanese writer, and Toshiro Mifune, a Japanese actor, were the my first two Asian models of what it meant to be adult. Japan made me proud to be an Asian. Why shouldn't Japan take over the world?