繁星满天，灰尘遍地

《星球大战》光明和黑暗势力的战争，惊天动地，震撼人心。后续和前述，一集又一集，几十年来，积聚了粉丝无数。英雄和美女角色个性分明，几多演员借此电影系列成名，星光灿烂。

网络时代，粉丝们在社交媒体聚集，形成粉丝团Fandom。科幻故事系列，《星球大战》粉丝团以男性为主。有些粉丝痴迷男性英雄角色和Princess  Leia之类的高贵淑女，但不肯接受宇宙中出身社会底层的坚强女人。

《星球大战：原力觉醒》的主角Rey是个拾破烂的女孩。扮演这角色的女演员Daisy Ridley被粉丝们疯狂攻击，最后不得不关闭她的Instagram账号。

近来种族主义抬头，《星》粉团找到了新的打击目标：亚裔女人。越南裔演员Kelly Marie Tran在《星球大战：最后的绝地武士》扮演一个维修技工Rose Tico，戏份很重的配角。去年底电影上映没几天，就有人在星球迷百科网Wookiepedia上把这角色改名，用对华人种族歧视的字眼。随后又在社交媒体上攻击这个演员和角色，肆意宣泄愤恨和仇视。今年六月，忍无可忍的Kelly Marie删掉了全部Instagram帖。

终究邪不加正，粉丝和媒体开始发声谴责种族主义和男权对亚裔女性的网络凌霸。今天夏天的Comic con年会上，Rose Tico粉丝们集会Rally支持这女演员。

今天Tran姑娘在《纽约时报》发文，抗拒被网络暴力边缘化。

Kelly Marie Tran: I Won’t Be Marginalized by Online Harassment

她控诉网霸对她所造成的伤害。她解释说关网是因为大量的恶意攻击对她有“洗脑”作用，使她失去自信。这种“洗脑”不仅是网络效应，更是社会上各种偏见和势力在她成长过程中的影响。今天她开始反击，从正名开始，坚持自我意识，一个亚裔女子在多元社会中的self identify和平等地位。

你们自己看吧，一个亚裔姑娘的心声，坚定勇敢。她在向一个不平等的社会挑战！

It wasn’t their words, it’s that I started to believe them.

Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories

And those words awakened something deep inside me — a feeling I thought I had grown out of. The same feeling I had when at 9, I stopped speaking Vietnamese altogether because I was tired of hearing other kids mock me. Or at 17, when at dinner with my white boyfriend and his family, I ordered a meal in perfect English, to the surprise of the waitress, who exclaimed, “Wow, it’s so cute that you have an exchange student!”

Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole life: that I was “other,” that I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t good enough, simply because I wasn’t like them. And that feeling, I realize now, was, and is, shame, a shame for the things that made me different, a shame for the culture from which I came from. And to me, the most disappointing thing was that I felt it at all.

Because the same society that taught some people they were heroes, saviors, inheritors of the Manifest Destiny ideal, taught me I existed only in the background of their stories, doing their nails, diagnosing their illnesses, supporting their love interests — and perhaps the most damaging — waiting for them to rescue me.

And for a long time, I believed them.

I believed those words, those stories, carefully crafted by a society that was built to uphold the power of one type of person — one sex, one skin tone, one existence.

It reinforced within me rules that were written before I was born, rules that made my parents deem it necessary to abandon their real names and adopt American ones — Tony and Kay — so it was easier for others to pronounce, a literal erasure of culture that still has me aching to the core.

And as much as I hate to admit it, I started blaming myself. I thought, “Oh, maybe if I was thinner” or “Maybe if I grow out my hair” and, worst of all, “Maybe if I wasn’t Asian.” For months, I went down a spiral of self-hate, into the darkest recesses of my mind, places where I tore myself apart, where I put their words above my own self-worth.

And it was then that I realized I had been lied to.

I had been brainwashed into believing that my existence was limited to the boundaries of another person’s approval. I had been tricked into thinking that my body was not my own, that I was beautiful only if someone else believed it, regardless of my own opinion. I had been told and retold this by everyone: by the media, by Hollywood, by companies that profited from my insecurities, manipulating me so that I would buy their clothes, their makeup, their shoes, in order to fill a void that was perpetuated by them in the first place.

Yes, I have been lied to. We all have.

And it was in this realization that I felt a different shame — not a shame for who I was, but a shame for the world I grew up in. And a shame for how that world treats anyone who is different.

I am not the first person to have grown up this way. This is what it is to grow up as a person of color in a white-dominated world. This is what it is to be a woman in a society that has taught its daughters that we are worthy of love only if we are deemed attractive by its sons. This is the world I grew up in, but not the world I want to leave behind.

I want to live in a world where children of color don’t spend their entire adolescence wishing to be white. I want to live in a world where women are not subjected to scrutiny for their appearance, or their actions, or their general existence. I want to live in a world where people of all races, religions, socioeconomic classes, sexual orientations, gender identities and abilities are seen as what they have always been: human beings.

This is the world I want to live in. And this is the world that I will continue to work toward.

These are the thoughts that run through my head every time I pick up a script or a screenplay or a book. I know the opportunity given to me is rare. I know that I now belong to a small group of privileged people who get to tell stories for a living, stories that are heard and seen and digested by a world that for so long has tasted only one thing. I know how important that is. And I am not giving up.

You might know me as Kelly.

I am the first woman of color to have a leading role in a “Star Wars” movie.

I am the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair.

My real name is Loan. And I am just getting started.