I Am Who I Say I Am
I Am Who I Say I Am
Search: asian, amateur
“Asian” is a loose and arbitrary term. People (maybe not all people, maybe not you, but people) think: the Big Three (Chinese, Korean, Japanese) or Filipino or Thai or maybe a loose, clustering conceptualization of slender girls with slanted eyes - just the right amount of ethnic ambiguity to intoxicate and intrigue. It’s a large continent, but these are the ripe pickings that float upwards in popular imagination.
Asian Ambiguity and the Search for a Cultural Home
My face is very ambiguously Asian. You can tell I’m Asian, but you can’t tell if I’m full or half, or what kind of ancestry I have; and this ambiguity plagues me wherever I go. “Where are you from?”, “Where are your parents from?”, and “No, where are you really from?” are all questions I’ve gotten not only abroad, during the four years I lived in Scotland, but also at home in Los Angeles. So many people have asked me “what” I am…but I don’t really know myself.
On White Privilege and Losing It
As a child I was never taught white privilege and thus was never able to verbally recognise it. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t feel it.
(In)Adequately Asian
Throughout primary school, the other Japanese children - including fellow hafus - made it a habit to tell me that I’m “not really Japanese”. They told me I wasn’t allowed to eat Japanese foods, namely the onigiri loving made by my Irish mother who tried to give me some connection to my lost other heritage. Most notably, I remember being in my primary school library with my class. As I put back my books another student came up to me and asked if I could translate a sentence written in Japanese. I couldn’t. Or at least not fully. The girl said, “Ashley said you wouldn’t be able to”.
Fully Mixed: A Change in Perspective
When I first started writing this article, I began recounting all the racist encounters I had with non-Asian folks in Germany. My classmates referring to the Onigiri (rice balls) I had for packed lunch as “smelly brains”, asking me whether I could speak Chinese, and telling me I was “pretty even though I’m Asian”. I would respond “I’m only half Japanese”, clinging onto my German side as much as possible. I thought about the amount of time I spent in front of the mirror trying to make myself look more White.
To Be Seen As I See Myself
Last autumn, in a time before Covid, I was strolling the streets of Italy. It was my first time traveling outside of the United States. I was all by myself, with only a handful of memorized Italian phrases to aid me. And it was spectacular.