Thinking about ending friendship

I value all friendships very much, occasionally to the point of putting my needs second. Most of my friendships are long lasting and I don't take people for granted. So I'm struggling with a new friend I met last year. She's such an amazing person, I could do on and on about how great she is. But I have moderate panic when I think about meeting up with her for one reason alone. She incessantly mentions my race. 100% of the time it's irrelevant to the conversation. She's Chinese and I'm Japanese so it strikes me as odd that she would be so obsessive about my race. I knew something was a little off when her first question to me was to get my racial identity but in an indirect way. Since she's found out my race, she hasn't stopped mentioning it every time we see each other. Its gotten to the point where I had to tell her three times that race is not an issue here or that I am not ok with my race constantly being referenced. She even talks about my race when something isn't about my race. We were talking about plant when she mentioned a flower and gestured towards me saying, its in Japan too. This plant exists in about 99% of the world so not only isn't it Japanese, its not even racial. She acts like many of my white friends who find out I'm Japanse and then the rest of my life I have to listen to them talk about all the Japanese things they know. I was born in the US in a black and spanish speaking neighborhood, so not only do I not speak Japanese, know any Japanese people but my school taught Spanish.

In case people don't know, the US is absolutely obsessive about race, especially where I live. People, usually white americans always start off talking about a non white friend with, "my black friend, " My native American boyfriend", most people consider this natural but i've always thought it ranged from insensitive to awkward and even a little narcissistic.

I know this seems small but I racial narcissism is a pet peeve. When people find out I don't speak Japanese, the response is never ending. I'm accused of lying, accused of being ashamed of my culture (my culture is American and a litte bit of my black and latin neighborhood and mostly black school). I've told my friend that this is really getting ridiculous. Our white friend constantly mentions our race as well. Every time we say anything about our parents, she makes it about our race. My parents didn't come from an Asian country so it makes it that much more painful that people's stereotypes are this strong. They never bother to find out about my family before making generalized statements. My Chinese friend said that her Japanese friend is exactly like me, then rattled off all the ways that she's not. When I asked what we had in common she said we were raised the same. But I've never told her how I was raised. I seriously doubt that her Japanese friend's parents were raised in Peru and then moved to Britain and then Canada before moving here. To make things easier, I never say anything and ignore it.

The issue is I can't take the ignorance anymore. Everyone tells me this type of thing is benevolent and she's just relating to me. But isn't racism literally seeing people in only one way and not treating them like an individual? I don't do the same to her and I don't talk about any of my coworkers race. I don't randomly tell her about my chinese neighbor or chinese coworker. So I'm not sure how normal this is. All I know is that Ive told her that this has gotten out of hand but she won't stop. I also am beginning to think she might be a narcissist. My Nigerian friend was also found to be a narcissist. I knew the second she told me she was nigerian and made a huge deal out of it because she was fishing for my racial information. When she asked me, I was extremely uncomfortable because i had previously told her that I was very uncomfortable when we went out to dinner and several I never met began asking for my race but nobody elses. She later began abusing me. Anyways, I just needed to get this off my chest because I am sad to lose a friend.

I am half Spanish and I once spent time with my Spanish-speaking father in the Spanish community in Florida and they were shocked that I didn't speak Spanish. I told them I was born in America and my parents didn't really bring their home cultures into the house.

Anyway, there are many ways to look at this but the most important thing is, if she cannot respect your wishes after you have asked her more than once then perhaps it's time to move on. I am older and I recognize "time" to be my most valuable commodity and I would move swiftly to change things in this case. When I was younger I would let things go - for too long.

Things are changing rapidly in America. Minorities have a voice that for so long was suppressed or ignored. Now everyone wants to talk about it. We are still trying to figure out this new freedom. I think it's a good thing overall (though that also inflames racists on all sides), but in your case, you can only take so much. You are trying to cultivate more well-rounded relationships and that's healthy.