I’m sorry.
I’m sorry to that nine-year-old girl who squeezed herself into a pink t-shirt with glitter and tried to do her dark hair like the girls with gold fairy hair on TV.
I’m sorry to that ten-year-old girl who was not able to look beyond appearances. My heart aches as I remember how she looked up with sad eyes at who she and society deemed royals. She wanted so badly to be like them. To be like her. Only that she could never. Ever.
Because she was me. And I was stuck with just being me.
These deep-seated childhood memories ran through my head when I listened to Nashville-based, twenty-six-year-old pop and R&B artist Brooke Alexx’s single “I’m Sorry, Tokyo,” released on January 13, 2022. It went viral on TikTok, where the song has accumulated over 1 million views. As a “halfie” — half-Caucasian and half-Japanese — Brooke Alexx wrote this moving, real and personal song about her raw regret of shying away from her Japanese culture as an adolescent in order to fit into Western society.
Sitting on the couch in the middle of our dorm’s living room, heads dipped in communal reflection and eyes staring at the ground, my best friend/roommate Megan Niju and I listened to Alexx’s “I’m Sorry, Tokyo.”
Megan was born in California, but she went back to her family home of Kerala, India after her kindergarten years until she returned to the U.S. for her high school and college years. At present, she is a sophomore at Union majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry (hence, she fondly calls Saturday and Sunday her ‘homework days’).
I grew up all my life in my home of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and came to America in 2019 in my senior year of high school. Now, I am a sophomore at Union double majoring in creative writing and broadcast journalism (Megan likes to joke that she’ll have an easier time making money than I will). A strong bond was struck between us in our freshman year, much of it due to our common experiences with being a member of a minority ethnic group in a Western environment.
Back to that afternoon in our dorm’s living room. I clicked the play button, and we listened to the opening notes — just five soft piano notes paving the way for Alexx’s soulful lyrics. She started singing, but it sounded more like talking. It was a conversation. She was telling her story. But it was no longer just her story. It was our stories.
Alexx started singing, or telling us, about how her grandmother had given her Japanese books to read, encouraging her to learn her culture’s language. But thirteen-year-old her rejected this opportunity because it didn’t seem cool, and she felt embarrassed of the ‘weird’ way her grandmother talked.
I asked Megan if she would like to share her “I’m Sorry, Tokyo” story for Cardinal & Cream. And she very kindly agreed to share her unfiltered, honest experience.
She related one of her early childhood memories to Alexx’s opening lines:
“When I went to kindergarten in the US,” Megan told me, “whenever my grandpa would drop me off, people would always make fun of his accent. This was after the time that 9/11 happened, and people were particularly racist toward people who were brown. ‘Cause you are at the time when you want to fit in, I never stood up for my grandpa and myself. I thought loving my culture was something embarrassing to admit. So, I really related to how [Brooke Alexx] felt embarrassed when her grandma spoke with an accent and how much she regrets feeling that way.”
Alexx sang on about how she distanced herself from her culture to fit into the Western mold, until she would even make racist jokes about herself before others did to save herself from the hurt and be ‘in’ with the crowd.
“I also made the joke before someone else did,” Megan continued, “For example, they would call me super lame names like ‘curry muncher,’ which by the way I think was made up by someone of poor intellect because firstly, you do not munch on curry. And secondly, other cultures eat curry too. Sometimes, when someone was about to say a racist joke, I would just say it first to get it over with. My personality was that I wouldn’t let anyone make an offensive joke, like calling me a terrorist or Bin Laden’s daughter… so me making the joke first could prevent that.”
While the first verse sounded like a record of our childhood experiences, the chorus was our souls looking back and crying out — unsaid painful wishes that were held back by our fear of others for far too long. Like us, Alexx wished she could turn back time and boldly choose to love herself and be alright with living outside the crowd. She wondered if it was too late for her to call Tokyo home, and apologized to Tokyo for avoiding her Japanese roots for so long.
I, too, wish I could go back and tell nine-year-old Eunice that she didn’t need to compare herself to the effortlessly pretty girls with blue and green eyes and try so hard to change and wish away herself. I wish I could go back and tell sixteen-year-old Eunice that she didn’t need to hide the fact that she came from Malaysia just because some kids teased her about “living in a jungle treehouse” — a flat-out lie, but it still got to her.
Many of us wish we could turn back time and tell our high school self that what those people said was stupid. We wish we knew back then that what they made fun of us for was actually a beautiful, unique part of who we are. If only we knew they were just too immature and insecure to appreciate it. Looking back, even now as “adults,” it still hurts.
Megan speaks to how she felt as ‘the girl outside the crowd’: “The major feeling is frustration. I really wanted to fit in. Back home, I was literally with people of the same skin color and culture, but people made fun of me for being ‘whitewashed’ just because of my American accent. It made me feel like I was not good enough. Like I will never find my people. Funny enough, this helped me filter out the toxic people and find the genuine people who will stay true to me and love me no matter what, like my parents. People who won’t fit me in a box.”
I thought that was a positive way to look at it. Be yourself. Be your culture. Toxic people will always try to bring you down. But that way, you will find your people.
In conclusion, Megan had the following to say to anyone else who has cracked under peer pressure: “As a little girl doing Indian classical dance and wearing Indian jewelry in a Western culture, I shied away from it and didn’t want people to stare at me. Then I asked myself, ‘Why am I ashamed of this beautiful culture?‘ I should be spreading it to other people. If they are going to be eating our food, they might as well know about our culture.”
“I’m Sorry, Tokyo” is not just a song. It is a call. It is a call for us to come back home. It is a voice in the void telling us it is not too late. It is never too late to love yourself — all parts of yourself — and redeem the courage and beauty you lost.
Please, please listen to this song. For one, it is a beautiful piece of musical art. But most importantly, it speaks to the little hurting child in the soul of every human being, not just members of a minority, but anyone who has given in to peer pressure. And that is every single one of us.
To those who feel far away from their home culture: once again, it is never too late. You can start now. You don’t need to be a child to learn and love. The world does not need another carbon copy of the norm. Learn. Discover. Hold on to your unique culture. Not a lot of people have that. And you do. Reach out for a community that shares your experiences and background. You were never the only girl or guy outside the crowd. There are always girl(s) and guy(s) outside the crowd.
So yes, I’m stuck with being me, and I can’t become ‘her’.
And that is beautiful.
