I’m sorry, I’m not blonde. I’m sorry, I’m not white. I’m sorry, I’m not the girl that you wanted. This was my mantra growing up in predominantly white, suburban Minnesota. Growing up in white spaces made me feel like I was looking into a fractured mirror every day. Walking around outlet malls, I only saw white models on the banners of “cool” stores like Hollister and Urban Outfitters. In any movie or show where the guy gets the girl, she’s almost always white. In my own experiences, I was often, and sometimes still am, the second, third, or last choice to a white girl.
I never saw myself as desirable, dateable, or likable, like how other girls could view themselves because I never saw someone pick a girl like me.
When Jenn Tran was announced as the leading lady for Season 21 of The Bachelorette, I was ecstatic. Finally, for the first time ever, I was going to see a Vietnamese-American woman find love and show the world that a woman who looked like me could be wanted for who she is.
Throughout Jenn’s season, I loved watching her be herself, speak Vietnamese, share her desire to embrace her culture more, and search for someone who would love her for who she is. As someone who spent most of her life embarrassed of her culture because it wasn’t mainstream, can barely hold a conversation in Vietnamese without a few sprinkles of English, and is constantly trying to mold both nationality and ethnicity together, I truly saw myself represented on the screen with Jenn.
It was comforting to see a woman of color being embraced, celebrated, and loved. So, to see it get taken away from her in the finale was heartbreaking. The man she picked may not have wanted her in the first place, and once again, a woman of color became a second choice to a white woman.
It confirmed the universal fear that all women of color have experienced or are continuing to work through — that maybe we will always be inferior to the other girl. That no matter how much we try, we may never reach the bar that is the conventional beauty standard set up by white society. That even if we come to accept this fact and we become secure in who we are and our cultural heritage, all this self-work can be crushed by one person and several false promises. This unravels years of young insecurities and doubts that we — or at least I — have pushed back and tried to overcome.
Many of us have dreamed of and prayed to have that special someone in our lives who wants to learn our culture through language, food, and tradition because it’s a deeply personal side of us. For me, embracing my Vietnamese side continues to be a never-ending hurdle race. With every hurdle I pass, another one appears. It’s not a graceful process — I stumble, trip, or run into the bar. To be able to let someone in to watch this infinite and vulnerable race is a true testament of trust. It’s traumatizing to invite someone in with open arms and have the support from the sidelines turn into ridicule.
What happened after the filming of The Bachelorette and during the finale (why did Jenn have to watch the proposal next to her ex-fiance?) should never happen to anyone. Every person, especially woman of color, should be able to find someone who’ll support them in their hurdle race, and maybe even join them.
So, to the Bachelorette franchise — let’s keep the main thing the main thing, and set up our leading ladies for success in finding love. After all, it’s what they’re there to do.