Photo by naomi carr
Despite the conversations with my single-race mother, the exchanges with my grandmother (who self-identifies as “racially ambiguous” yet is the epitome of the Aryan ideal) and the lectures from my racist biracial father (what an oxymoron, am I right?), I never knew how little others understood about race until I read “Choose Your Own Identity.” by Bonnie Tsui. I believe the misunderstanding here is simple: Mixed people are not the trophy of societal progression, and the world should not celebrate our struggles and triumphs as such. The complexities of being mixed are too great to be simplified and explained from afar by a non-mixed person. (No, just because someone has mixed children does not make them qualified to generalize my experience; a man does not automatically become qualified to speak on behalf of women just because he has a daughter, does he?)
While it’s easy for Tsui, a non-mixed woman, to preach how the fluidity of the mixed identity diminishes the institutionalized meaning of race, her lack of experience is glaring. If the creation of mixed people were truly the antidote to racism, then why don’t we all have an interracial orgy, create a beige, raceless generation, and call it a day! (Who knew solving racism could be this easy?) In reality, mixed people inherit the same stratified society as everyone else. Instead of transcending racial boundaries as expected, we share the “otherness” that Tsui and other minorities experience, often feeling too alienated to pioneer the social change we’re tasked with. In fact, this “otherness” is the only feature that unites the diverse mixed population. (Oh, how we stand together, alone.)
Since Tsui boasts her perceptiveness as the silver lining to her minority status, I believe it’s time for her to practice what she preaches. I’ve heard what she has to say about my mixed identity, and I believe it’s time for her to listen. Allow me to redefine what it means to be mixed.
The mixed identity problem: the problem of immigration and assimilation, of role confusion and isolation. My personal mixed problem is that I am half Japanese, a quarter Indian (as in South Asian, contrary to Columbus’ perversion of language), a quarter white and a complete cultural void. My mixed problem is that I’ve never met someone, outside my family, with my same racial breakdown. My mixed problem is that I’ve never felt understood, even remotely, on the basis of race, culture or the lack thereof. My mixed problem is that I’m too white for my Asian peers and too Asian for my white ones. My mixed problem is that I don’t see my race(s) as anything but a problem. (Go ahead, tell me how this isn’t a problem.)
But maybe Tsui isn’t entirely wrong. I am, in fact, at liberty to choose my identity, and I make that choice daily. I make that choice when I decide to play up my “Asianness” around my Asian friends, when I nod along with them, pretending that I know what it’s like to have a real culture, pretending that I know what it’s like to be called “Ching Chong” or “Dog Eater.” When I go home, I make that choice again when I decide to suffocate the Japanese and Indian girls, only allowing the white part of me to live. I make that choice when I nod silently as my parents tell me learning Japanese is a waste of time — in Japan, America, Canada or even on the moon, I’ll always be an outsider, to them and to myself, despite all attempts. I made that choice when I studied French eight hours a day for a month, begging for any true culture to adopt me because I have no home country to go home to, and my mother tongue is drowned somewhere in the Pacific (or maybe the Indian Ocean).
I’m almost certain that Tsui is correct — of course, racial identity is fluid. I’m a chameleon who knows how to hide herself well, who knows how to make difficult choices. The only choice I don’t have, however, is to be whole. One part of my identity will always live at the expense of another; I’ll always be two-thirds empty, one-third full. Suddenly, the problem lies not in checking boxes but in filling a void. (Isn’t this a more malignant problem to have?)
And it gets worse. The convergence of gender and race is both unknown and tragically predetermined. My mixed problem is that I’m the product of colliding worlds, of superior and inferior races in a single female body, living in a society dominated by the white man. My mixed problem is that my unofficial ex, having known my racial breakdown, explicitly told me he preferred Asians. My mixed problem is that I’ve never felt Asian enough. My mixed problem is that I allowed him to violate me so that he would still like me despite only being half of what he wanted. (After all, isn’t the subservient stereotype of the Asian woman the appeal? How else was I supposed to feel connected to my “culture?” Go ahead, tell me how this isn’t a problem.)
My mixed problem is that I’m tired of being called exotic, and I’m tired of my “exoticism” being fetishized. (What am I, some rare breed of dog?) If the only alternative to being mixed is to be nothing at all, I choose nothing at all, not out of some radical act of self-acceptance, but out of the quiet confusion and torment I’d like to escape. My intuition tells me that the mixed people Tusi cites do not choose their identities entirely out of pride, but instead, to officially accept their estranged status that society has already assigned them. (Go right on ahead, using statistics, reclaimed racial slurs in an endangered language and the tone of a concerned yet ignorant mother, please tell me how this isn’t a problem.)
So stop telling me that there’s a silver lining. Stop sugar coating and glorifying my struggles. Stop celebrating me like I’m a war prize won in the battle against racism. Stop telling me to choose sides or not to choose sides. Stop pretending like I have a choice at all. Stop having mixed kids and trying to relate to them. Stop pretending to relate to me.
Here’s the truth: We’re worlds apart. It’s time for the non-mixed side to see that.