18 May 2026, Antwerp
Edited 24 May 2026, The Hague
On May 17, The Hague Creators, a creative community which I am part of, posted an announcement on their Instagram and WhatsApp group: “The Hague welcomes people”. It is the theme of a new project: “As many of you have probably seen, there has been a lot happening lately in The Netherlands and also in The Hague around asylum seeker centers and migration discussions [..] As a community full of international creatives, […] we want to start a community creative project. […] The goal is not to start political arguments or debates, but to create work around openness, humanity, community and what kind of city we want The Hague to be”.
I wrote on both platforms: “Saying political debates are unwelcome is forcing erasure and effectively censoring dissenting opinions, which is the opposite of art and creativity. The messaging here is insensitive at the least and violent at most. Have you consulted migrants from different backgrounds than yours? Or was it a mostly white, mostly affluent, mostly Global North Consensus?”. Silence. “The Hague does not welcome all people. It welcomes “expats”, who live in an economically comfortable, racially homogenous, Masters degree minimum holders. Being able to say “I am politically neutral” is violence and privilege at its peak.”, I added.
As I write to The Hague Creators on May 18th, I expect no responses or reflection from them. At the most, I will receive a carefully worded message along the lines of “thank you for your message, we don’t care for your opinion.” (read between the lines: “F*ck you, sensitive b*tch, who we will never invite you to any of our events ever again”. At the most, the argument will be picked up by a white man in the comments who will threaten to “give [me] cancer if I run into you on the streets, you slanty c*nt” (actual message I received in 2016), or “you should hear about how migrant workers are treated in Brazil/India/China, or how women in my [Eastern European] country are regularly assaulted!!!!” (also actual messages I’ve received). Unfortunately, as I am a South Korean national, they have found that it wouldn’t be as useful to yell “go back to your country!!!, most likely because they themselves want to visit it now. K-pop, amirite?
I’m editing this post on May 24, when I receive a WhatsApp notification: A (one of the founders) has removed you from The Hague Creators. This is the first I hear from HC after the same person replied on May 20: “While I respect your opinion, please be respectful of other opinions that may differ from yours”. The same day, the other founder, F, started suddenly following me on Instagram, without saying a word. I message her: “Hi F, why are you following me now?”. No response. I block her on May 22. The only response HC provided on Instagram? “Thank you for sharing your perspective ❤️”. I say: “lol did you just say “thanks for your *diverse* perspective, we’re gonna do nothing about it?”. Silence again (as I expected).
I find it impossible to see The Netherlands, or The Hague for that matter, as “welcoming of all people”, when the visa process to get into it would rule out 99.9% of the world’s population. Impossible because I can’t unsee the video of an asylum center set on fire just six days ago. Impossible because I can almost feel the tears of Angel, a transgender woman from Macau, who took her own life in one of those centers, after Dutch asylum workers (whose salaries I and you pay) ignored her repeated plea to please separate her from her rapists, and she was raped a second time in the same center, just two days later. Her body was found on the tracks of a station called Echt. Really. Real. (She is one of 10 queer refugees who died in processing in the past 5 years). Over the weekend, I find a press release from the Dutch Prosecutor’s Office which states: This April, the Amsterdam Court held its first hearing against a 25-year suspect accused of murdering a 16 and 18 year old, [who were both refugees from Syria].
If both of the following hold true: (a) The Hague welcomes people; and (b) that the Loosdrecht asylum center was set on fire, the two teens were murdered, and Angel (and 9 others) did commit suicide, we come to an uncomfortable collision/reunion of multiple truths:
The Hague welcomes people, and asylum seekers do not belong to the category of “people”.
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty fucked up.
The Hague is an international city. But like most “international capitals” of the world in the Global North (New York, Geneva, Brussels, etc. etc.), it is privy to the select few. Mostly to those who have managed to finagle the fine balance between appearing and sounding white (either by the lottery of genetic inheritance, or through education in which a Person of Colour manages to master the art of code-switching and dressing in cardigans, khakis, and Oxfords). Add to that a financial background which allows you to afford living in Archipelbuurt/Voorburg/Scheveningen (but on the embassy side, not the social housing side okay), maybe Zeeheldenkwartier if you’re feeling young and frisky – twee maanden borg, drie keer modale salaris vereist, do you want the flat furnished or will your company be handling your relocation?
I am tired of being The Person Who Brings Up Race. But I do it because I know by now that I am not the only person who sees, feels, and hears what’s missing in between the lines. The Hague welcomes (white and financially wealthy) people. The Hague welcomes (future home-owning, box-3-asset-holding) people. The Hague welcomes people (who will shut up about their identity when it is inconvenient to us, but will let us use them as a Diversity Photo Op on the Gemeente website).
I am part of a lovely choir here in The Hague. I am happy with it most times, until the instructor reminds us to “please pronounce everything in Queen’s English”. “Properly leave out all Rs and make sure to say “oouh”, not “oh”. I stop myself from pointing out that the song is not an English folk song, that she is not British, and that none of us in the choir speak English as a first language, including herself. That forcing an accent on someone is a form of colonial violence (coincidentally, she comes from another country that used to be a colonial powerhouse). I do not tell her because I did not join a choir to become its unpaid Diversity Officer who makes all the kind (but all white) ensemble uncomfortable. Because once I articulate that she is forcing colonialism, I will have activated the White Sensitivity Button which makes people just not want to say anything at all for fear of Being Cancelled in front of the Sensitive Person of Color.
I also do not bring up this British Accent Problem because I have already left a theatre class this year after I pointed out to the (this time, actually British) director that I find it interesting that after hosting auditions with large portions of People of Color, the final cast is all-white, except for me. Where is the Colombian lady who had professional acting experience? The Iranian student who was so excited? The Egyptian man who had read all the pieces by the playwright? In filing that complaint, I did not make it about race. I made it about fairness, because I saw that the theatre was run by an all-white board and staff. I strategized: I would like to understand how it is that the main cast seems to be previous pupils of the director, and that I overheard at least two people say she hand-picked roles for them, when the audition was advertised as open to all from all levels. I would also like to understand why I was picked for a role I did not read at all during the audition. I look forward to your response.
The director’s response was typical: I have directed plays for ten years in London, and it is at the director’s discretion to select a cast. I did not select you for the bigger roles because you were, simply put, not talented enough. WERE YOU EAVESDROPPING ON ME AND KATRINA (not her real name) WITH WHOM I DISCUSSED (creating a role for a white woman who made the final cut)? I suggest you leave the theatre by EOD today. I responded: Dear [Director], are you sure this is the messaging you want to send? Sharing a private conversation between yourself and a third party without her consent, and then threatening me to leave by EOD today? She responds immediately: Yes, I’m sure, thank you. The theatre refunds me my sign-up money, and even the fee of the audition (15 euros). (I expect that the latter is an insurance they’re willing to afford to avoid being cancelled by The Loud Asian Woman.)
Again, I do not expect an apology. I suspect the director believes herself a champion of diversity, as she has selected not one but two white transgender people to be in the final cast. The hint: At the audition, she very loudly announced that Alina (not her real name) will be a tad bit late because she is recovering from dot dot dot gender affirming surgery, with that hinting pause where people expect a moral cookie for being a decent human. Look at my diversity palette du jour, isn’t it beautiful, the pastel pink and blue scattered among the paleness. Ahh, harmony.
Apologies are rare. They are rarer from people whose egos you wouldn’t expect to be fragile. Considering how much of the wealth, cultural hegemony, and political power White Europeans hold, I find it fascinating to see this constant refusal to apologise. I was brought up with sayings like “always say thank you and sorry”. “The bigger person apologises”. “Saying you’re sorry doesn’t mean you’re wrong, it just means the argument isn’t worth more of your time”. “Sometimes, losing is winning”. All I can conclude is that White Europeans really want to be the smaller person who want to keep arguing and losing (Perhaps they could try an Exclusive Authentic Distraction-Free Stayaway Experience at an asylum processing center, they might be more open to ~gratitude~ and ~empathy~).
It’s been a decade since I’ve lived in the Netherlands, and almost exactly that long since I’ve been talking about racism. I pick and choose my battles because I am a non-white person in a white country and I intend on living here in the foreseeable future (paid way too much taxes not to want to be a pensionado here). If I responded to every single microaggression, unfunny “joke”, catcall, “hey, Chinese girl!”, etc, etc, I would go mad. Instead, I surround myself with people who will apologise if I point out something that made me uncomfortable, and I will choose people to whom I will readily explain why it made me feel that way. I have my group of friends who look and sound like me, with whom we do not need to explain ourselves. But most importantly, I’ve grown up being just a person, not a racialised person, so I know when I am being treated unfairly (remember that Sandra Oh interview where she is amazed at how it is to be an Asian person who has never been othered?).
This comes with a dollop of privilege. When I pick my battles, I know that most times, I will win them. I win arguments – because I sound white. I win arguments because I speak English like an American, French like a Parisian, and Dutch like I’m from the Zaanstreek with a touch of foreignness that is First World. I win arguments because I am “not emotional like those [brown and black] people who yell on TV”. I win arguments because I have six years of data on my back, and 1,300 cases of Asian People who’ve experienced discrimination on paper. I win arguments because I have Western Institution credentials like a Dutch Master’s degree, two New York jobs, a nonprofit which consults the European Commission. I win arguments because I am a Model Minority in the eyes of people who do not see race: home-owning, bracket-2-tax-paying, politely-spoken migrant who does not blockade the A12, tie herself to the tracks at Rotterdam Port, or tell people they are racists.
What they do not know is that I do not say you are racist because I know that it is illegal in the Netherlands and Germany to say so (there’s a precedent of a Korean couple in Berlin who were sued for defamation after calling a group of sexual harassers racist). What they do not know is the countless times I told Dutch people I experienced racism in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, The Hague, Hoorn, Maastricht, where they either refuse to believe me or say “oh but that’s because it was in Rotterdam. Was it a Moroccan? (it wasn’t)”, “Oh yeah but of course it was in Maastricht, they’re so achterlijk even to us other Dutchies ha ha we get racism there too”, or flat out refuse it could happen in such a progressive city like Utrecht (progressive for whom?).
I started analysing dialogues and mapping conversations on Twitter, Facebook groups, on my blog, as a survival technique since my arrival in 2014 to 2020, when I “could have become the queen of racism on Jinek” (in the exact words of a white ex who texted me after seeing my face on the cover of De Volkskrant). By then, I had sufficient experience (meaning, enough A/B testing at my mental health’s expense/future comedy material) to understand exactly which type of framing and language would make racism palatable to white people without making them too uncomfortable so they’d support me (whatever that means in action). In other words: I have mastered the art of sounding like a perfect victim in the white gaze. And I damned well will use it, and teach others to use it as a means to an end.
I have not, by the way, become the “queen of racism” or appeared on Jinek. I declined to go on Jinek because I did not speak Dutch then, and I do not believe that expats should speak for migrant communities whose histories and grief span decades and centuries before theirs on this land. I refuse to exploit my near-whiteness or to sell my Asianness to advance my “profile”, whatever that means. I refuse to become a convenient spokesperson who will say just enough to make a white, middle-class audience nod and say “oh, wat vreselijk” (because you need conflict to keep people’s attention, which translates into views, which converts into euro billzzz), but who will shut up at just the opportune moments for them to turn off the TV at 9pm and comfortably drift off to sleep, telling themselves they learned something new today. Like our pain is a flipbook that can be closed shut and perused when they/we fancy.
I am not the migrant that needs to be heard.
It is the Indonesian woman who married a Dutch man and moved here, had a child, only to be abused daily while effectively being held hostage that if she left him, she would lose her visa immediately and would have to return home without her child (it is untrue, she can apply for a Humanitarian Visa under Article 8 of the EU Human Rights Convention).
It is the Chinese cook who came here with hopes of hard earned remittances, only to have his passport confiscated upon arrival and forced to sign a contract he cannot read, to be told when he asks when he will be paid that he actually owes the Dutch owner money for his flight, accommodation, and “visa application fees” (this is why the Asian Chef Visa was abolished in 2024).
It is the transgender woman who came to Schiphol fleeing conversion therapy only to find out that she is a walking target inside asylum processing centers, who takes her life, and is buried under a gender and name she refused so fiercely.
It is the Japanese child who is beaten until they bleed by six white children on a playground. The crime? Wearing a face mask. The school’s solution: “Please make sure your children do not wear face masks”, they write in neatly folded pink flyers, in March 2020.
It is the Korean woman who wakes up with a swastika etched into her hallway, knowing that the only person who could have inscribed it is a man living across from her. It is the other Korean woman who calls me the day I share that first swastika story in a Dutch newspaper, asking if she heard her story somewhere and shared it without her consent. Her swastika was sprayed onto a brick wall outside her home.
It is the friend from Peru who asks me if I could marry her so she can stay in the country after jobs that decline her because she does not have a visa and visas that are declined because she does not have a job, and tells me “please Emily, I can pay you money for the visa costs, and even some extra if you want”, and I tell her “amiga, listen… if you pay me money to sponsor your visa, that is human trafficking”, she pauses, and says “I did not know that”.
It is the woman who met her Dutch husband on a plane in 1980, and came here with him, only to have his closest male friends constantly ask her if “she can take on a second” and grope her when her husband looks away at parties, me asking why she does not tell her husband, and her responding “I told him…but he says he doesn’t know what to do”.
Migration is a fundamental human right. In definition. But it is a right that comes with many asterisks and footnotes and exceptions. It has become a status symbol. People who say things like “All people are welcome” have never applied for a visa. I mean, applied for a visa as in, you show up with a binder full of bank statements, criminal records, invitation letters, yellow fever vaccination certificate… You pay in cash according to the daily exchange rate, you smile at whoever even passes at you at the embassy just in case, you call everybody Sir and Madam and always end your sentences with Please, Thank you, Pardon. Sir. Not apply for a visa as in you click on a few pages on the Internet, pay 20$ using your Mastercard, knowing you will receive a document that’s valid for two years, within 24 to 48 hours in your Gmail inbox. Where migration means vacations and beaches and skiing, not a means of survival you constantly need to prove to people in uniforms who do not look like you, who squint when you speak, and who hold your livelihood in their callous-free twiddling thumbs.
I am tired of explaining that I too am a Person of Colour. I am tired of joining new hobbies and research groups and needing to check what kind of spaces they will be. I am tired that I need months to screen White people on their stance on race before I can agree to become their friends or colleagues or project partners. More often, I am tired that people who seem so kind to some can be so cruel to others, as when they innocently ask me “But why are you mad? I said Chinese people are the ones who bring corona, who eat monkey brains. You are not that kind of migrant. I support you”. I am tired that I have to avoid restaurants and bars who have turned my Turkish friends away today while welcoming my white Dutch friends yesterday, the bar where a man grabbed my hair and the bartender kicks him out but still says “I guess he was really into you”. I am tired of the Anti-Discrimination Agency in Maastricht which told me they could not file a harassment claim because a restaurant which refused me service did not say “I am refusing you service because you are not white” – The same Agency which would message me five years later and ask me to please share my “important survey on the Chinese community” with them. I am tired that after ten years of living in this White country, I now shrug off racist attacks by laughing at them, instead of stewing in anger. Because I have trained myself not to get angry.
Migration is not a linear process. It is not a happy ending with a kabuki drop and a bow at the long end of a velvet curtain. There are no “good migrants” and “bad migrants” on a sliding scale which neatly assesses the paleness of your skin and the number of zeroes in your bank account.
Once upon a time, the Dutch migrated to what is now New York in search of freedoms. They sailed to pillage Indonesia. Some even went as far as to modern day Korea, after a shipwreck drifted them away from their original course to Nagasaki (and were taken prisoners). The Dutch migrant has always existed, and it was mostly the average person: somebody who works with their hands to till the land, to build dams, to weld power plants and ships. Those Dutch stories are nowhere to be found in the history books, because they did not have the wealth, the literacy, the social leverages to be heard. That is also the case of the average migrant who wishes to come to the Netherlands, but is refused entry 99.9% of the time.
We are not so different. Humans are all the same at heart. But our circumstances aren’t. Pretending we all all migrants with the same rights and privileges would be a delusion, and I’d like to think that in 2026, we, residents of a First World, Global North nation, who are literate, who are taught that the pillars of dutch society are Gelijkwaardigheid, Rechtvaardigheid, en Solidariteit, are able to look straight forward at the fact that differences exist. Differences are not discrimination. Angel, Máxima, and I are all migrants, but nobody would call us all the same way. For one of us you would reserve the label “migrant”, another “expat”, and a third “well she’s originally from Argentina but she’s really Dutch now!”. That is perfectly fine. But let’s not mince our words. The Netherlands does not welcome all people. It never has, and it never will. No modern-day country does.
Names and personally identifying details have been changed to protect privacy. The incidents and situations cited in this article are all based on actual cases, and any errors are my own.
A version of this article will appear as part of my intervention at the European Parliament next month on behalf of Asian Voices Europe. The topic is "Meaningful Participation of Migrant and Refugee Women Across the EU" - If you know of people and readings I should be aware of beforehand, please do share.
References:
- Man verdacht van moord op twee tieners in Amsterdam op nieuwjaarsdag (Pro forma). Openbaar Ministerie. 22 April 2026.
- Asielminister Van den Brink wil uitleg over opvangplekken: dit is het tekort in jouw gemeente. 21 May 2026.
- Brandstichting bij noodopvang Loosdrecht, betogers houden brandweer tegen. NOS. 12 May 2026.
- Brandbrief aan Minister van Asiel en Migratie en het bestuur van het COA. LGBT Asylum Support. 13 May 2026.
- EU Anti-Racism Strategy 2026-2023. European Commission. January 2026.
- Episode “Gezelligheid” on Holding Space, Aminata Cairo. Spotify
REAL KOREANS 
Let me know what you think :)