I've watched Joe Millionaire and American Idol … a couple of times … each. They were entertaining and I had my laughs, but the truth is they are a far cry from identifying the reality in reality shows. I know it's just Hollywood being Hollywood and broadcasting crap like "Are you HOT?" What if I had my own reality show? What would it portray? What would it be called? I didn't have to think long before I came up with the following idea.

My reality show would be called The Real Life. It would be like a documentary with a-day-in-the-life approach in which a different person of color is followed in each episode. The show would depict the real issues and experiences most people of color face in their day-to-day lives. My hope is that viewers of all backgrounds would recognize what it is like for most people of color to live in the United States. I know who I would pick for my first episode—my close friend Anna.

"If I could take a pill to be white, would I? I honestly don't know." My friend from Atlanta told me this in a phone conversation two weeks ago. She is a second-generation Korean American woman like me and is in her final year of public high school. If you had met her two years ago, you would have seen a depressed, unmotivated, super-insecure and very unhappy person with suicidal tendencies. Some may argue a part of it was teenage angst gone awry, but I know most of it was figuring out her identity as an Asian American woman. Fortunately, Anna has had exceptional personal growth since then and has made great leaps over periods of depression. But everyone experiences occasional setbacks and two weeks ago, Anna had one of them.

Anna recalled a certain experience when a teacher assumed English was her second language. "It's not even just what the teacher said," she said. "It's the constant battling against all the stupid little things that make me tired. I'm tired of having to explain myself to others, correct people's 'politically incorrect' bullcrap, and fight back tears and anger when I think it's all over but later realize it's not. It never stops. My friends don't get it. I feel lonely. Why couldn't I just be white?"

I think Anna is an example of what a lot of other people of color have experienced and thought of at one point or another in their lives. I am one of them and have met and read about many others. But I keep reminding Anna and myself that "I'm the one who can make the peace," and, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, "true beauty consists in purity of heart." If we truly want to dismantle the racist beast that has overtaken humanity, we all first have to question, search and find our identity before any real progress can occur. It is not until then that I believe that "we shall overcome."