I have been actively making Youtube videos for the past nine months now.
About a few months into it, while watching me struggle to grow my Youtube audience, my best friend bought me a bunch of rock & roll t-shirts and suggested that I try wearing them as a part of my dress up, to show my personality as more than just an Asian face that I am an American girl. I am a t-shirt and jeans kind of gal anyways and I am a music lover so it seemed like a good idea. I decided to give it a try.
My channel has been growing steadily but slowly as perhaps most Youtube channels grow, but I do wonder if being an Asian American female could be a challenge for the middle Americans to listen to what I have to say. I do wonder sometimes.
I remember singing Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” in front of a room full of musicians and some coming up to me in wonderment of how it is that I can sound like Patsy Cline. What was implied in the comments was the strangeness that a country song was being sung by Asian female like a country singer. Everyone asked me to sing it every time I was at that jam session and I sang. I don’t know if those musicians came to see me beyond my face, or continue to be in wonderment of the desire to match the voice and the face.
I believe there will be people who will see beyond my race. As is, the small fan base that I do have are middle American women.
I think we all struggle with a thought of belonging, that is our human nature after all. I hope that one day we all just share in the belief that we belong to one human race but in the meanwhile, I will keep writing, speaking, making my videos on topics of my passion and hope to get to sing in jam sessions again because it is so much fun.
- Nancy
