- I was 12 years old.
- I was 13 years old.
- I was 12 years old.
- I was 13 years old when I was bullied.
- When I was bullied there were confrontations in hallways.
- It was pretty much directly face to face, verbal, contact.
- I was being called a name from my so called friends.
- Some person that I don't know slammed my head
into the locker and called me a chink.
And they just walked away.
- I was dealing with a lot of, you know, acne problems.
This guy, he would just call me pizza face
in front of people.
- I was just walking through the cafeteria
and someone called me a faggot.
It was kind of like my whole body had chills
and I didn't know what to do.
- They all giggled and laughed.
And it actually was a word in Cantonese
and I don't speak Cantonese.
I think now I would say like, (speaks foreign language).
What they were calling me was little fat girl.
- This kid turned around to me with a Sharpie marker
and for all the classmates to hear and he said,
"Hey Zach, bend over, I wanna play connect the dots
"with your face."
- I was so embarrassed when it happened.
Bullies made me feel so bad about my ethnicity.
Like, I really did internalize that.
- It made me feel like I wasn't as good as anybody else.
- I didn't really know what is friendship
if the people you think you're close to
are laughing at you.
- It was something that was really heartbreaking
for my mom to see.
I remember she just always looked so sad for me
because I was just being myself.
And me being myself meant that I was being bullied.
- You just have this fear, in middle school, in high school,
that you're going to be called that
for the rest of your life.
- [Voiceover] Now it's a word that I look back on
and I use it to see how far I've come.
- [Zach] You know, I realized that that's not who I am.
I haven't been that since I was you know,
13, 14 years old.
- [Voiceover] No matter what people think, I can accomplish
anything that I want.
I was doing great things.
I had great friends, a great family.
- [Voiceover] I love my life and I am more than just
a little fat girl.
- [Voiceover] That word does not define me.
It never did define me.
I'm so much more as a person.
- [Voiceover] I could be whoever I wanted to be
and I was extremely proud of being Asian.
- [Voiceover] I am great.
I am happy.
I am anything that I want to be.
- There's gonna be a time where you realize
that the thing that people target you for
is actually your greatest asset.
- I recommend building a support system
and help each other learn that you are
more than those words.
- If you be yourself, you grow up to be who you want to be,
you're gonna be a great person, no matter what.
- You are so much more than any of the words
that anyone could say to you.