“What the hell was yer mom doin’ takin’ these damn classes in Japan?!? ’She a makiss- masasa-, well,  a mass-oh-kiss or somethin’?” barked my driver’s ed teacher jovially. His hyuk-hyuk-hyuk laughter stirred the pungence of old french-fries and coffee in his baking red, white and blue Honda into something noxious, something that shouldn’t exist; I could almost see a green puff of smoke whizzing out of the car and into the flickering summer trees. I swallowed my disgust before replying. After all, it wasn’t his fault that he never learned proper hygiene.

“She’s Japanese, actually. Born and raised. It was simpler for her to learn how to drive in the stricter classes in Fukushima before coming here.”

“Well isn’t that neat! She’s a Jap’, huh? An’ I di’n’t know you were adopted, that’s so cool!!!” More hyuks, more french-fries.

 Like I was watching them from far away, I saw my knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. I took a deep breath. Surely it wasn’t the his fault either that I was tired of hearing variations of that response, of that assumption.

 “Oh, I’m not adopted, I’m half,” I rattled off. Weak smile.

 “YOU’RE an ASIAN?!? You’re an Asian! I never woulda guessed, an’ I’m usually pretty good at that type-a thing! I suppose I can see a little of the Orient in your eyes, but you’ve really floored me here! Now I’m lookin’ at you an’ thinkin’ ‘What does an Asian look like? Look at this girl, Tim. Look real hard. She and her friends, so nice, so attentive in class- An’ she’s probably the ringleader of all-a-them!’ Hey, do yer friends know?”

 I contemplated my knuckles. Were those mine? Where was all my skin, why could I only see blood and bone?

 “Hey, so you must eat a lotta rice at home, huh? Your ma likes ta make rice and that’s it, huh? Hyuuk-hyuk-hyuk-hyuk-hyuk!” His mottled Hawaiian shirt groaned against the weight of his protruding belly.

 Now it wasn’t only the skin on my knuckles that was slipping away, and I felt my spine give way to a sword, my insides to orange juice pulp. The lovely, flickering, trees that I had previously admired were crimson-- were they on fire? Or was I giving into the cliche- seeing red, was it? I gritted my teeth and in the most friendly and false manner I could muster, and replied that we actually had Japanese noodles way more often than we had the stereotypical chiyakizushi rice.

 “Ching-ching what rice? And noooooooodles, huh? Well I’m personally a spaghetti sorta guy. Always have been, always will be! Ever had spaghetti? Why the long face? I c’n tell that you’re not a spaghetti type-a girl, but ya have to open your eyes sometimes, ya have ta try ta appreciate it!”

My eyes, however, were wide open, far more so than they had been before, as we pulled into our starting point, a sea of potholes with scraps of parking lot floating around. With these new eyes I numbly watched his piggy eyes crawl over me, in their self-perceived  french-fried superiority. I saw the crimson, flickering, trees, being fueled into a bloodier hue by the itchy silence.

 “Betcha you c’n ask yer dad a thing or two about spaghetti! He probably won’t stand for you people’s noodles all the time, am I right? Hyuk-hyuk.”

 Something inside of me snapped. Here I was, a privileged, intelligent person and a functioning member of society, how dare he insinuate that I was, or that my father would consider my mother and I as, anything less than his equal! Who did this man think he was to impose his spaghetti doctrine on our family?

I pounded the braked like an angry rock drummer during a final set, making the wheels screech like the lead singer of said band, ignoring his oily exclamation.

 “If you use chopsticks all the time, how come y’aren’t better with the damn wheel?? Jesus Christ!”

 It wasn’t just the insensitivity of it all. Perhaps I was over-privileged or naive or shallow, but I had never been treated in such a discriminatory way because of my race before; that awful, awful thing happened to other people, not me! But it just did. No matter how hard I tried to fit in or do well, there was an irrevocable part of me (that I couldn’t, wouldn’t, change for the world) that would always place me just a notch below others in some cretins’ eyes.

Sucking in a breath I returned his keys with my now-skeletal, numb hands and saw the komorebi (dappled, yellow sunlight) paint and return a semblance of color to them. I turned stiffly before stepping out of the car to freedom. I looked him in the eye--this dumpy, crass, green-smoke man who, despite years of manners drilled in by my mother, I couldn’t, wouldn’t, bring myself to thank for the lesson; the words choked in my newly skeletal throat. I felt my lips become contortionists and assassins as they sadistically leapt to strangle my cheeks--no, smiling would not do either. So as life goes, I merely stalked off into the yellow, yellow, sunset, a lopsided brand of noodle that he would never be able to comprehend no matter how hard I, or anyone else, tried.

But it was okay, because you know what? I’ve been mistaken for spaghetti before, and it’s pretty over-rated.

Hyuk-hyuk.