Interview with Snehaa Ganesh Kumar
Snehaa Ganesh Kumar, Grace Bida
Snehaa Ganesh Kumar, Grace Bida
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Grace: Ok so thank you for doing this today, I appreciate it. Ummm so I just want to ask you some questions about mental health, coronavirus, Asian American identity, umm and things like that. Umm so I’m going to start with mental health if that’s ok?
Snehaa: *nods* G: So what does mental health mean to you and what are some coping mechanisms you’ve been using during this time? S: So mental health means something that I- I largely disregarded I’d say until about freshman year of high school, which was about four years ago. I- I kind of grew up being really hard on myself, always working and not really valuing my time to spend with my friends and loved ones. I just felt pressure to always be working and you know get things done. I didn’t really realize the impact that had on my mental health until high school when all I was working towards was this spelling bee. Uhhh I ended up becoming the runner up and missing the trophy by a letter and I didn’t realize how much I was focusing on that one |
Image of Snehaa Ganesh Kumar
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[cont.] thing until you know I missed that and it hit me. And all of freshman year, I’d say it took me the full year, even two years to fully come out of that, and like realize that I definitely am a hard worker and really really want to work towards my goals… but I also need to spend time with my friends and my loved ones and make memories. So that’s what I’ve learned lately.
Corona has maybe reinforced that more for me because I did, in high school, skip out on hanging out with my friends, going to parties, etc. uhh to study, keep up my grades, do extracurriculars, and what I would tell myself then is just that: the last couple months of high school, I’m going to know where I’m going to be going. Going to college, we’re going to have a grad trip, graduation, senior ball, etc. and I was, I’d say right when my school ended – I’d say mid-March – was right when I was done with everything and I didn’t really have anything to do for the next couple of months and all of summer too. That was kind of going to be you know my time to enjoy life. But as we know, that’s that’s been taken away too. So I think what I’ve learned even more from this is not just overall, but on the daily you need to have a balance of working and living – you know, like you can work for a good part of the day but you also need to prioritize your friends and everything too. So... yeah.
G: Thank you. So how has coronavirus and this whole situation I guess affected your mental health, and do you feel pressure to perform at the same level as normal despite being in the middle of a traumatic pandemic? How do you deal with that?
S: Yeah so it’s it’s definitely… so what happened for me was right after I got out of school, like I’d say for the first two/three days I was like, you know, “no school!” like all of us, that’s how we all were. But then it started to, you know, sink in and that we’ll probably not going to go back and we were all on our last day of campus, especially like seniors like me, our last day of high school. We went through that day not even knowing it, you know? And that all started to sink in, I think I started to go through ummm a couple of weeks of just you know really low periods. Me and all of my friends because we started to realize that. But but I think I got out of it soon because I managed to FaceTime or Zoom one of my friends umm really really often, we umm do a lot of things together still and I think I really needed this this kind of forced break almost to kind of sit down and not umm always keep running. I think we were all going way too fast for this sucks but it absolutely sucks this corona, but if there’s any positive to this situation I’d say that’s one of them.
So I’d say that’s umm I definitely do feel pressured to do a lot of things you know because I have friends that are writing a lot of books now and doing a bunch of new things, and while I am working: I’m planning for college, I’m working on my non-profit, and doing stuff like that – I’d say half to ¾ of my time is spent relaxing and doing stuff like that ummm it’s it’s something I sometimes feel guilty about because I’m like “other people are doing such great things!” you know “I need to be working too!” but I think I think I really want to be able to perform at that level in college and have a social life at the same and to get to that kind of mental state, I need a break right now. So I think it’s just important to know what you need for yourself right now, instead of trying to work work work work work. Some people might have been trying to take a break until now and that’s why they’re ready to work and you know during this. It’s just what you need personally.
G: Nice umm could you talk about your nonprofit a little bit and introduce us to that?
S: Yeah so so my nonprofit, it’s called The Queen Bee Project and we started it about I think ex- yeah about ten months ago. It’s kind of, it’s been an idea that I’ve kind of been tossing around in my head for a really long time without really telling anyone really, but last year I kind of… so me, I- I’m not really kind of like a natural kind of leader I guess? Like I don’t have the traditional qualities of a leader like being extroverted, talking a lot, being really good at public speaking, etc. It’s really hard for me and because of that, even though I have this really good idea for an organization, I don’t really know if umm I could start it and have it be really effective, but I I’ve just decided to take that risk last year and start it. So what Queen Bee Project actually is is we have like a dual mission so we have Queen and we have Bee that why it’s Queen Bee Project and umm on like “Team Queen” as we call it, we just empower women in male dominated fields, so how I personally related to this mission was my junior year I actually right before I started this, I did an internship at powerschool and umm there was actually only one woman on the executive team and she started at SC Daniels. What she did during our internship was pull all the girls aside and said like “sometimes you’re going to be the only girl in the room” and it was actually worse for her because by the time we went through it, we weren’t even as we hadn’t progressed as far as we have now. Basically you know if her and other women in really good positions in male dominated fields now have been able to make it this far when it was actually harder for women to make it in these fields, we can definitely make it now. That’s that’s something that’s really affected me because I plan to go into astrophysics which is an extremely extremely male dominated field and that while I didn’t really say it out loud, that was kind of a subconscious thing for me like do I really want to go into a field where there are so few women, where I might not have another girl to talk to in the room if I want to? That was something that I was [distorted] in my head and never helped me completely get over it. So what we basically do is we just highlight stories of women, especially locally in like Sacramento umm like we did Sevrene Banks who is a female veteran: she led the first all female troop into Afghanistan I believe. Then we interviewed like a journalists and we uhh [distorted] and we’ve done a couple of women like this. Like what we’re basically trying to do is create like a local community in Sacramento of women that have already been through it that women aspiring to go into those fields can look to and contact. So that’s what we’re doing at Queen – definitely we have a lot of umm a lot of plans in place and it’s going to grow and expand pretty soon, we’re working on that but that’s what we’ve done so far.
And so the second part is Bee. That is connected to my experience with spelling bees and other academic competitions that I’ve done. And what we do there basically is reduce the anxiety that you know comes with being on stage in like some people will blank out when they’re on stage spelling a word and mostly just uhhh debunking the idea that people need to go into competitions with the idea that they need to win them. Because that’s what me and a lot of my friends that I met at spelling bees did, and not a lot of us won, you know. Anywhere from like 250 to now 500 people that come to nationals each year and you know usually one or two people who win. Last year there were octochamps, but we can’t depend on that happening again, so the point being that a very very small percentage of people that compete may win. So why do why 95% of people that compete need to have their dreams completely shattered you know. I don’t really think it needs to be that way. You know if I really look back at it now, the things that these competitions have given us are a work ethic, really good time management, really amazing friends and a really amazing community, and the things that thing is we all got this no matter where we ranked in the competition, and umm something as well is that ranking is really not related to your skill in my opinion, it’s really the question of what happens on that day, what questions you get, what word you get. But so many people pin their judgement of how “good” a person is on their ranking, and while I think this is something that isn’t really talked about a lot I’ve seen it affect me and a lot of my friends is saying “oh they’re so much better than you” or “oh you missed such an easy word” you know things like this. It can really affect a person. So what we’re basically just trying to do is spread our love for competitions and make sure that the next generation of kids that come into these competitions are really able to enjoy the experience they get without like without if they lose being sad about it and not enjoying the rest of the experience and taking as much out of it as they can. So that’s what we’re doing. Long story.
G: That’s great, that’s awesome! So have you seen your work with Queen Bee Project shift due to coronavirus – has that shifted what you do, how it works, your mission, working on how you’re doing, what you’re doing? How’s that changed?
S: Umm so I’d say in say in terms of our Queen side, we’ve mostly just made it more digital I guess. Like the interviews we’re doing are on Zoom or Skype. I think we mostly have a digital platform, like we post articles and stuff, so I guess hasn’t changed a lot. What I’d say has changed is like the Bee side of things because virtually like the vast majority of competitions are actually cancelled this year due to corona, and 8th graders are in their final year of [distorted]bee for the spelling bee and seniors in high school are in their final year of spelling olympiad and [distorted], and a lot them have been studying for this for a really long time and now can’t get their shot you know at the competition. I try and put myself in that situation and I can’t even imagine how much it’s affected some people, and I think for the time being, for the Bee side we’ve just shifted our mission temporarily to support people who are going through that. Like I just recently hosted a Zoom call for 8th graders who are spellers to kind of talk through how they’re feeling and kind of meet each other because that’s what they would’ve done had they actually been able to go to the spelling bee. For now I think it’s just more geared towards supporting each other through how this has affected the people that have been studying for the competitions.
G: Great, thank you. Ummm let’s see how… how has coronavirus affected your life, kinda broad, how has it affected your life? What it is like having to share your space with others, do you find that connecting online is more difficult for facilitating social connections, I guess? Like how has that affected your life, kind of a broad question but-
S: I think uhhh it’s affected me both negatively and positively in various ways like first I missed out on all my senior activities like I said before so that’s definitely like big hit, the entire class of 2020, so it took me a while to kind of get past that. But I kind of I think I’m kind of used to connecting to people over the internet given that ummm a lot of my close friends are friends that I met through the spelling bee and we only meet once a year. So we’re kind of used to talking over group chats. Now I actually kind of have more time to video call them and everything, so that’s better, but yeah. With my friend group at school, more locally – we definitely kind of do miss each other a lot, especially given that we each going through different things. I think that you know we’d be able to be there for each other in person. I think we’re all making sure to stay in touch constantly and make sure that everyone is doing okay because it is really easy to because we’re all away to forget to check up on someone, just you know and if that happens, it’s really easy to feel like you’re completely alone. So I guess that making sure that we’re all talking to each other really really often. Ummm yeah I’d say those are the negative consequences, but I’d say the positives more time to just spend with yourself, more time to just relax. Umm more time for introspection and umm *nods*
G: Great, thanks. Ummm uh is there something that this time has taught you about yourself personally that you didn’t know before or didn’t realize?
S: I think ummm it’s that I can relax without feeling guilty because I used to you know I don’t know work 70% of the day and relax 30% of the day max usually. In that 30% my mind would be constantly thinking, like even when I’d be watching a movie like “oh what do I need to do next, what do I need to do next?” and I think this is kind of worst is just kind of not have anything to do and it’s a good thing for me because I’ve learned how to relax without feeling guilty and without thinking about anything. Just kind of take my mind off of things I guess.
G: How has coronavirus and this time affected your academic experience and your performance? Like do you think you have more motivation, less motivation? Do you feel better about relaxing, like do you still need to work? How’s that pressure for you?
S: Umm so I’d say there’s definitely way less motivation when it comes to school work, especially when it comes to being a senior. Like we all know where we’re going to college at this point, we’re having like virtual graduations or drive thru graduations, so mentally we all feel like we’re done, but we still need to be doing schoolwork. So that's something that really lowers motivation that I think we’re all just pushing through. In terms of other kind of work, you know like applying for college, career type things, I still feel pretty motivated to work I think. But yeah school type work, it just feels like a lot of busywork right now, since we’ve all mentally kind of moved on.
G: Yes, I agree. Umm and then I have some questions about Asian American identity now. So how has your awareness of race changed over this time?
S: Like of our own race?
G: Yeah
S: So if I’m being completely honestly, I’d say up until like sophomore year of high school, I knew nothing in terms of social affairs – like I’m saying in terms of being socially aware because I’d been so, I’d grown up so focused on one thing that I’d failed to look at anything else and now when I actually wanted to, it just felt like a lot of work. Like I just needed to learn so much and it’s going to take so much time, and I don’t know if I have time to do that. That’s how I was, but I just realized that I need to know, I need to know what’s going on in the world, I need to be informed, and I really need to do this, that’s the only way I can make informed decisions and really be sure about the decisions that I’m making. So I made that conscious decision and started to read up on a lot of things. I think how I have been, how I’ve looked at Asian American identity during this coronavirus pandemic is looking at how I’ve seen it up til now is everyone sees Asians as smart, overachieving, constantly working, nerds that don’t have social lives – that’s how I’ve seen it mostly. I know that that’s completely not true at all, but during coronavirus I’m seeing that there’s so much more to it especially seeing that how uhh Chinese people are being discriminated against due to this virus and that shocked me so much. My friend group, we’re so tolerant of each other, of races, genders, sexuallity in every way that seeing that in parts of the world that this kind of stuff is still happening kind of blows your mind. It feels like you and your group are so past it, but there are so many people that still don’t know how to look past skin color or race, and I think it just taught me that there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done even if your immediate community. Even if it seems like they’re past it, you need to keep talking about it, you need to keep spreading the word, because there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done.
G: Yeah, great, nicely put. Umm have you felt a sense of unity with other Asian Americans during this time?
S: I think, ummm I think what I’m seeing a lot of is there’s… so when it comes to people there are so many different parts that makes up a person: there’s your race, there’s your gender, there’s your sexuality, there’s umm a geographical group that you identify with. Ummm just because a lot of people are Asian American, just because there’s a lot of people that are Caucasian, I’m seeing a lot of people making other people feel like they can only talk about a certain issue this way because you identify with this group, and I think we come from such a unique group of different backgrounds. Despite what race we identify with, we all have unique perspectives on each situation, and we can’t say like just because you come from here that you’re entitled to talk about it this way, and I think that shuts down a lot of conversations that could be had. So that’s what I’m seeing a lot of.
G: Interesting. Ummm has your perception of different members of society changed?
S: Umm so I was watching the class of 2020 like online graduation yesterday and I saw something that Barak Obama said… how we’re, how corona is mostly starting to show us that umm people in positions of power don’t have it completely together, and that couldn’t be more true. Like we’re starting to see that you know people that are in charge of this entire thing could have done things so differently you know. Like if we were in that position, do we know how we would have acted? We don’t. I think that’s really helped me to see that all people in all different positions of power, of all different ages, and all different races umm are still human and don’t have it all together all the time. I think that’s the main thing we’re starting to see.
G: Yeah. Umm and then I know you have to go, so I want to be respectful of your time, but I have one final question. How has hearing reports of hate crimes against Asian Americans affected your mental health?
S: Definitely, I grew up, I’m in [distorted] right now, that’s where I live and we’re a very… we live in a kind of social bubble, you’d say. Like we most people here, like the literacy rate is way above the national average, umm median income is way above the national average, there’s not that many, not that much crime. I feel very privileged to have grown up in a place like that, but I think something it’s done to all of my friend groups and me is not make us be able to connect to social issues like hate crimes as Asian Americans because we don’t see a lot of it going on mostly in our immediate community. I think what it’s taught me is that I’m very excited to be able to go live somewhere else for college, meet all these people from different places in college, and learn more about how things work in different places around the country and the world. I think that I haven’t been able to connect with a lot yet, but seeing news like this and seeing that this is going on I definitely want to be able to go into other communities and see what makes people think that way and see if there’s a way to fix it.
G: Nice, thank you. Where are you going to college?
S: I’m going to UC Berkeley.
G: Oh! Congrats! That’s awesome, I have a friend who’s going there. It’s great, you’ll love it. Ok, thank you so much, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this interview.
S: No problem
Corona has maybe reinforced that more for me because I did, in high school, skip out on hanging out with my friends, going to parties, etc. uhh to study, keep up my grades, do extracurriculars, and what I would tell myself then is just that: the last couple months of high school, I’m going to know where I’m going to be going. Going to college, we’re going to have a grad trip, graduation, senior ball, etc. and I was, I’d say right when my school ended – I’d say mid-March – was right when I was done with everything and I didn’t really have anything to do for the next couple of months and all of summer too. That was kind of going to be you know my time to enjoy life. But as we know, that’s that’s been taken away too. So I think what I’ve learned even more from this is not just overall, but on the daily you need to have a balance of working and living – you know, like you can work for a good part of the day but you also need to prioritize your friends and everything too. So... yeah.
G: Thank you. So how has coronavirus and this whole situation I guess affected your mental health, and do you feel pressure to perform at the same level as normal despite being in the middle of a traumatic pandemic? How do you deal with that?
S: Yeah so it’s it’s definitely… so what happened for me was right after I got out of school, like I’d say for the first two/three days I was like, you know, “no school!” like all of us, that’s how we all were. But then it started to, you know, sink in and that we’ll probably not going to go back and we were all on our last day of campus, especially like seniors like me, our last day of high school. We went through that day not even knowing it, you know? And that all started to sink in, I think I started to go through ummm a couple of weeks of just you know really low periods. Me and all of my friends because we started to realize that. But but I think I got out of it soon because I managed to FaceTime or Zoom one of my friends umm really really often, we umm do a lot of things together still and I think I really needed this this kind of forced break almost to kind of sit down and not umm always keep running. I think we were all going way too fast for this sucks but it absolutely sucks this corona, but if there’s any positive to this situation I’d say that’s one of them.
So I’d say that’s umm I definitely do feel pressured to do a lot of things you know because I have friends that are writing a lot of books now and doing a bunch of new things, and while I am working: I’m planning for college, I’m working on my non-profit, and doing stuff like that – I’d say half to ¾ of my time is spent relaxing and doing stuff like that ummm it’s it’s something I sometimes feel guilty about because I’m like “other people are doing such great things!” you know “I need to be working too!” but I think I think I really want to be able to perform at that level in college and have a social life at the same and to get to that kind of mental state, I need a break right now. So I think it’s just important to know what you need for yourself right now, instead of trying to work work work work work. Some people might have been trying to take a break until now and that’s why they’re ready to work and you know during this. It’s just what you need personally.
G: Nice umm could you talk about your nonprofit a little bit and introduce us to that?
S: Yeah so so my nonprofit, it’s called The Queen Bee Project and we started it about I think ex- yeah about ten months ago. It’s kind of, it’s been an idea that I’ve kind of been tossing around in my head for a really long time without really telling anyone really, but last year I kind of… so me, I- I’m not really kind of like a natural kind of leader I guess? Like I don’t have the traditional qualities of a leader like being extroverted, talking a lot, being really good at public speaking, etc. It’s really hard for me and because of that, even though I have this really good idea for an organization, I don’t really know if umm I could start it and have it be really effective, but I I’ve just decided to take that risk last year and start it. So what Queen Bee Project actually is is we have like a dual mission so we have Queen and we have Bee that why it’s Queen Bee Project and umm on like “Team Queen” as we call it, we just empower women in male dominated fields, so how I personally related to this mission was my junior year I actually right before I started this, I did an internship at powerschool and umm there was actually only one woman on the executive team and she started at SC Daniels. What she did during our internship was pull all the girls aside and said like “sometimes you’re going to be the only girl in the room” and it was actually worse for her because by the time we went through it, we weren’t even as we hadn’t progressed as far as we have now. Basically you know if her and other women in really good positions in male dominated fields now have been able to make it this far when it was actually harder for women to make it in these fields, we can definitely make it now. That’s that’s something that’s really affected me because I plan to go into astrophysics which is an extremely extremely male dominated field and that while I didn’t really say it out loud, that was kind of a subconscious thing for me like do I really want to go into a field where there are so few women, where I might not have another girl to talk to in the room if I want to? That was something that I was [distorted] in my head and never helped me completely get over it. So what we basically do is we just highlight stories of women, especially locally in like Sacramento umm like we did Sevrene Banks who is a female veteran: she led the first all female troop into Afghanistan I believe. Then we interviewed like a journalists and we uhh [distorted] and we’ve done a couple of women like this. Like what we’re basically trying to do is create like a local community in Sacramento of women that have already been through it that women aspiring to go into those fields can look to and contact. So that’s what we’re doing at Queen – definitely we have a lot of umm a lot of plans in place and it’s going to grow and expand pretty soon, we’re working on that but that’s what we’ve done so far.
And so the second part is Bee. That is connected to my experience with spelling bees and other academic competitions that I’ve done. And what we do there basically is reduce the anxiety that you know comes with being on stage in like some people will blank out when they’re on stage spelling a word and mostly just uhhh debunking the idea that people need to go into competitions with the idea that they need to win them. Because that’s what me and a lot of my friends that I met at spelling bees did, and not a lot of us won, you know. Anywhere from like 250 to now 500 people that come to nationals each year and you know usually one or two people who win. Last year there were octochamps, but we can’t depend on that happening again, so the point being that a very very small percentage of people that compete may win. So why do why 95% of people that compete need to have their dreams completely shattered you know. I don’t really think it needs to be that way. You know if I really look back at it now, the things that these competitions have given us are a work ethic, really good time management, really amazing friends and a really amazing community, and the things that thing is we all got this no matter where we ranked in the competition, and umm something as well is that ranking is really not related to your skill in my opinion, it’s really the question of what happens on that day, what questions you get, what word you get. But so many people pin their judgement of how “good” a person is on their ranking, and while I think this is something that isn’t really talked about a lot I’ve seen it affect me and a lot of my friends is saying “oh they’re so much better than you” or “oh you missed such an easy word” you know things like this. It can really affect a person. So what we’re basically just trying to do is spread our love for competitions and make sure that the next generation of kids that come into these competitions are really able to enjoy the experience they get without like without if they lose being sad about it and not enjoying the rest of the experience and taking as much out of it as they can. So that’s what we’re doing. Long story.
G: That’s great, that’s awesome! So have you seen your work with Queen Bee Project shift due to coronavirus – has that shifted what you do, how it works, your mission, working on how you’re doing, what you’re doing? How’s that changed?
S: Umm so I’d say in say in terms of our Queen side, we’ve mostly just made it more digital I guess. Like the interviews we’re doing are on Zoom or Skype. I think we mostly have a digital platform, like we post articles and stuff, so I guess hasn’t changed a lot. What I’d say has changed is like the Bee side of things because virtually like the vast majority of competitions are actually cancelled this year due to corona, and 8th graders are in their final year of [distorted]bee for the spelling bee and seniors in high school are in their final year of spelling olympiad and [distorted], and a lot them have been studying for this for a really long time and now can’t get their shot you know at the competition. I try and put myself in that situation and I can’t even imagine how much it’s affected some people, and I think for the time being, for the Bee side we’ve just shifted our mission temporarily to support people who are going through that. Like I just recently hosted a Zoom call for 8th graders who are spellers to kind of talk through how they’re feeling and kind of meet each other because that’s what they would’ve done had they actually been able to go to the spelling bee. For now I think it’s just more geared towards supporting each other through how this has affected the people that have been studying for the competitions.
G: Great, thank you. Ummm let’s see how… how has coronavirus affected your life, kinda broad, how has it affected your life? What it is like having to share your space with others, do you find that connecting online is more difficult for facilitating social connections, I guess? Like how has that affected your life, kind of a broad question but-
S: I think uhhh it’s affected me both negatively and positively in various ways like first I missed out on all my senior activities like I said before so that’s definitely like big hit, the entire class of 2020, so it took me a while to kind of get past that. But I kind of I think I’m kind of used to connecting to people over the internet given that ummm a lot of my close friends are friends that I met through the spelling bee and we only meet once a year. So we’re kind of used to talking over group chats. Now I actually kind of have more time to video call them and everything, so that’s better, but yeah. With my friend group at school, more locally – we definitely kind of do miss each other a lot, especially given that we each going through different things. I think that you know we’d be able to be there for each other in person. I think we’re all making sure to stay in touch constantly and make sure that everyone is doing okay because it is really easy to because we’re all away to forget to check up on someone, just you know and if that happens, it’s really easy to feel like you’re completely alone. So I guess that making sure that we’re all talking to each other really really often. Ummm yeah I’d say those are the negative consequences, but I’d say the positives more time to just spend with yourself, more time to just relax. Umm more time for introspection and umm *nods*
G: Great, thanks. Ummm uh is there something that this time has taught you about yourself personally that you didn’t know before or didn’t realize?
S: I think ummm it’s that I can relax without feeling guilty because I used to you know I don’t know work 70% of the day and relax 30% of the day max usually. In that 30% my mind would be constantly thinking, like even when I’d be watching a movie like “oh what do I need to do next, what do I need to do next?” and I think this is kind of worst is just kind of not have anything to do and it’s a good thing for me because I’ve learned how to relax without feeling guilty and without thinking about anything. Just kind of take my mind off of things I guess.
G: How has coronavirus and this time affected your academic experience and your performance? Like do you think you have more motivation, less motivation? Do you feel better about relaxing, like do you still need to work? How’s that pressure for you?
S: Umm so I’d say there’s definitely way less motivation when it comes to school work, especially when it comes to being a senior. Like we all know where we’re going to college at this point, we’re having like virtual graduations or drive thru graduations, so mentally we all feel like we’re done, but we still need to be doing schoolwork. So that's something that really lowers motivation that I think we’re all just pushing through. In terms of other kind of work, you know like applying for college, career type things, I still feel pretty motivated to work I think. But yeah school type work, it just feels like a lot of busywork right now, since we’ve all mentally kind of moved on.
G: Yes, I agree. Umm and then I have some questions about Asian American identity now. So how has your awareness of race changed over this time?
S: Like of our own race?
G: Yeah
S: So if I’m being completely honestly, I’d say up until like sophomore year of high school, I knew nothing in terms of social affairs – like I’m saying in terms of being socially aware because I’d been so, I’d grown up so focused on one thing that I’d failed to look at anything else and now when I actually wanted to, it just felt like a lot of work. Like I just needed to learn so much and it’s going to take so much time, and I don’t know if I have time to do that. That’s how I was, but I just realized that I need to know, I need to know what’s going on in the world, I need to be informed, and I really need to do this, that’s the only way I can make informed decisions and really be sure about the decisions that I’m making. So I made that conscious decision and started to read up on a lot of things. I think how I have been, how I’ve looked at Asian American identity during this coronavirus pandemic is looking at how I’ve seen it up til now is everyone sees Asians as smart, overachieving, constantly working, nerds that don’t have social lives – that’s how I’ve seen it mostly. I know that that’s completely not true at all, but during coronavirus I’m seeing that there’s so much more to it especially seeing that how uhh Chinese people are being discriminated against due to this virus and that shocked me so much. My friend group, we’re so tolerant of each other, of races, genders, sexuallity in every way that seeing that in parts of the world that this kind of stuff is still happening kind of blows your mind. It feels like you and your group are so past it, but there are so many people that still don’t know how to look past skin color or race, and I think it just taught me that there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done even if your immediate community. Even if it seems like they’re past it, you need to keep talking about it, you need to keep spreading the word, because there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done.
G: Yeah, great, nicely put. Umm have you felt a sense of unity with other Asian Americans during this time?
S: I think, ummm I think what I’m seeing a lot of is there’s… so when it comes to people there are so many different parts that makes up a person: there’s your race, there’s your gender, there’s your sexuality, there’s umm a geographical group that you identify with. Ummm just because a lot of people are Asian American, just because there’s a lot of people that are Caucasian, I’m seeing a lot of people making other people feel like they can only talk about a certain issue this way because you identify with this group, and I think we come from such a unique group of different backgrounds. Despite what race we identify with, we all have unique perspectives on each situation, and we can’t say like just because you come from here that you’re entitled to talk about it this way, and I think that shuts down a lot of conversations that could be had. So that’s what I’m seeing a lot of.
G: Interesting. Ummm has your perception of different members of society changed?
S: Umm so I was watching the class of 2020 like online graduation yesterday and I saw something that Barak Obama said… how we’re, how corona is mostly starting to show us that umm people in positions of power don’t have it completely together, and that couldn’t be more true. Like we’re starting to see that you know people that are in charge of this entire thing could have done things so differently you know. Like if we were in that position, do we know how we would have acted? We don’t. I think that’s really helped me to see that all people in all different positions of power, of all different ages, and all different races umm are still human and don’t have it all together all the time. I think that’s the main thing we’re starting to see.
G: Yeah. Umm and then I know you have to go, so I want to be respectful of your time, but I have one final question. How has hearing reports of hate crimes against Asian Americans affected your mental health?
S: Definitely, I grew up, I’m in [distorted] right now, that’s where I live and we’re a very… we live in a kind of social bubble, you’d say. Like we most people here, like the literacy rate is way above the national average, umm median income is way above the national average, there’s not that many, not that much crime. I feel very privileged to have grown up in a place like that, but I think something it’s done to all of my friend groups and me is not make us be able to connect to social issues like hate crimes as Asian Americans because we don’t see a lot of it going on mostly in our immediate community. I think what it’s taught me is that I’m very excited to be able to go live somewhere else for college, meet all these people from different places in college, and learn more about how things work in different places around the country and the world. I think that I haven’t been able to connect with a lot yet, but seeing news like this and seeing that this is going on I definitely want to be able to go into other communities and see what makes people think that way and see if there’s a way to fix it.
G: Nice, thank you. Where are you going to college?
S: I’m going to UC Berkeley.
G: Oh! Congrats! That’s awesome, I have a friend who’s going there. It’s great, you’ll love it. Ok, thank you so much, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this interview.
S: No problem
We would like to thank Snehaa Ganesh Kumar for her time and insightful information during her chat with us. You can learn more about her nonprofit at https://queenbeeproject.org
Snehaa's Nonprofit Organization