‘No one stood up for us’: Asians in Europe wake up to truth of racism, and are no longer afraid to speak about it
- Tired of the racist comments she received, Berlin-based Indonesian photographer Irma Fadhila made ‘where are you from?’, a series of photos of Southeast Asians
- Those who have taken part, and spoken about their struggles with identity, welcome the project as a safe space where they can speak about the racism they endure
When Irma Fadhila, 25, an Indonesian photographer based in Berlin, walks through the streets of the German capital, she braces herself for possible derogatory comments. “Hey, sexy lady from China!”, “Ching chang chong!”, and “Konnichiwa!” are a few she is familiar with.
“Normally, all you do is freeze and try to process, because it always happens in a split second, and the people calling me names obviously wouldn’t stop to wait for my response, they would just walk away,” says Fadhila.
The vendor greeted her with “ni hao” – Mandarin for “hello”. Fadhila understands he was probably trying to be friendly, but at the time all she could think was, “Oh no, not again”.
“One assignment was to create a series of portraits of people from a certain community; the other was to design a book,” she explains.