For the longest time, I thought that I was the only one. No, to be more accurate, I let personal experience overpower the notion that with over 7 billion people living on earth, there had to be a group of people I could belong to. In truth, I had never met or heard of anyone who was African American and Vietnamese, so who was I to claim that such a person existed outside of myself? I was a loner. You often hear that there is strength in numbers, but I can tell you that in solitude there is self-reflection so deep that the meaning of yourself gets lost in translation and that is powerful stuff.
Living in the US, I had grown up around Black people. I had known lots of people who were Asian. I had even met the rare Blasian on a couple of occasions. The first time that I had ever head Blasian, I thought of an experimental flavor of soda or potato chip. Saying the word was satisfying in the way that it rolled off the tongue, but the fulfillment stopped there. That word and the idea of it didn’t have anything to do with me. It was an empty word that gave me nothing.
So for a long time, I called myself black and all the world’s self-affirming possibilities were laid out before me. I had family and friends- really fine, upstanding people- who were black and it felt good to call myself one of them. Was I denying myself in any way? Decidedly not. It really was for the best; not only was it the more simple option, but it was the option that gave me room to grow. Being black meant I had a history to take pride in, a legacy to aspire to, and a community where I could stand on the shoulders of giants and be bigger than I could ever be by myself. They say that no man is an island, but I tell you that a black woman is a vast and flourishing continent that has yet to be mapped out. Me and my fellow conquistadoras were going to trace our whole world into existence and I was ready. I am sure my Vietnamese grandmother, standing on her continent so far away, would have understood.
But I was liar too. The first time I heard the accusation “you aren’t really black” I realized with the acutest dismay how I had mislead myself. I was a fraud and everyone could see it. For my penance, I had to answer questions from strangers: What are you? Where are you from? Can I touch your hair? Everyone has a label and I was no exception. Think of it as a little non-descriptive box on an official form that needs your checkmark so that everyone can recognize you for what you are. I mean, what you really are. It is so simple really- I just had to be a little more diligent about my box checking. I checked mine every time I felt someone’s curious eyes peering into my face, every time I corrected wrong assumptions about my background. I even checked the same box more than once when I had to explain that even though I didn’t look Vietnamese, that didn’t change the fact that I was.
But this box was not the best fit. In fact, these gaping four walls were always collapsing in on me. When you have over-eager men wanting to date you because “you seem so exotic”, when you find yourself the token person of color in a professional setting and you know you were privileged in part because of your racial ambiguity, and when you know that no matter where you go you will always have to prove yourself, you get a little discouraged by all of the weight. You wish there was someone there to help you carry the load, but everyone else seems to like their boxes just fine.
When I started college, I had given up on finding someone with whom I could share my ethnic and racial identity with. Instead, I focused on my international studies major. No mere box can hope to contain all of the complexity that thrives in the world and I loved reading and writing about all of it. But the most rewarding part of an international studies major is studying abroad. I am convinced that any time an insecure and inexperienced young woman who has never stepped outside of the Bible Belt is sent to live and study in a foreign country, the result is a few months that are more transformative than all the years of any college experience. Case in point: in my time abroad I met my double and she changed my life.
In the least enthralling part of study abroad, I was sitting in the back of a stuffy classroom at Shanghai University. On the first day I was one of 30 other international students who silently regarded the teacher as she instructed us to introduce ourselves. One by one, the students utilized their flimsy grasp of Chinese to tell the class where they were from and what they were studying. Most students seemed to struggle with the task, but there were a few who gave the impression that they had been studying Chinese for a long time. In my seat, I was doing what I imagined everyone else was: mentally rehearsing what I was going to say.
But then I heard the words: “I was born in America and grew up in Vietnam,” and I came to life. I was disbelieving at first. Sitting straight up in my seat, I could only see the back of the speaker’s head from where I was sitting and I couldn’t help but to notice her voluminous crown of black curls pinned to the top of her head. It didn’t matter that it reminded me of my own hair texture, I reasoned that many non-black people have curly hair and it was nothing to get excited about.
She continued to say that she was a full-time student studying business at Shanghai University and hoped to work at her father’s such-and-such company in- someplace I didn’t catch the name of, but I was almost certain that she said Atlanta, GA. Being somewhat familiar with Atlanta, I knew that if her father was a long-time resident, then there was a good chance he was Black. But even then, I resisted the temptation to jump to conclusions. I was definitely curious, but not convinced.
Clearly, I needed an undeniable sign of this girl’s racial heritage. Luckily, the teacher, noticing the girl’s proficiency in Chinese, asked her how many years she had been living in Shanghai. In response, she held her hand up to use the Chinese finger signal for six. All I saw was a shining beacon of blackness: five slim brown fingers attached to a brown hand attached to a brown forearm. The color couldn’t be denied. Her voice was very faint, but she might as well have been preaching from a mountaintop with the way those words and gestures shook me.
When the introductions were over, the teacher asked us, a room full of strangers, to do a dialogue in groups of two. Before anyone made a move, I was out of my seat and dragging my chair across the room to her table. She, of course, saw me coming her way but didn’t realize that she was my final destination until I sat down in front of her. I was pretty sure that I was smiling in a friendly way, but I was mostly preoccupied with studying her appearance from up close. After looking deeply into her dark brown eyes, and liking what I saw there, I set aside the classroom-sanctioned script and improvised my own. Awkwardness ensued.
We started out by exchanging our Chinese names.
Then, I asked “What is your real name?” She stammered a little bit before telling me her full name. I could neither pronounce it nor write it down. But she saw my confusion and helpfully told me that she was nicknamed Tia.
I told her that I was also born in America. She nodded knowingly. I then laughed nervously and said that my father was born in Vietnam. In Saigon.
“That is where my mother is from. So you are half-Vietnamese too?”
“I am,” I smiled widely. “And my mother is American too. African-American.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. “Is your,” I began hesitantly “Is your father black?”
She instantaneously burst into a fit of giggling and couldn’t help but to start laughing too. “What are the odds?” I asked her. She just shook her head in bewilderment.
After class was over, Tia and I went out for and early dinner at a nearby restaurant and I asked her every question I could think of now that I could speak in English. I found out that she was born in Atlanta, GA to her African American father and her Vietnamese mother. When she was 14 months old, her parents separated and she moved to Vietnam with her mother. When she was 17, her mother married a businessman from Shanghai. She didn’t have much of a relationship with her father, but she would very much like to move back to America. She was fluent in English, Vietnamese, and Chinese and was spending her time studying and interning at her step-father’s company.
I was so captivated by this person. She was so much like me, except she was a worldlier, more driven version of myself. I told her over and over again how lucky I was to meet her. “I honestly thought that I was the only one. It’s like all the stars aligned to bring us together,” I tried to explain. She thought it was all quite funny. She joked, “So you are an astrologist, now? What can the stars tell you about me?” At first I couldn’t reply to that, but then I shrugged and said, “I don’t know about you, but my horoscope told me that I would meet my twin today.”
“Well, come on then, sister. I will give you a tour of the city,” she said. Since I was new to the city, I gladly hopped on the back of Tia’s little two-seater scooter. Even though the Shanghai traffic was beyond all rhyme and reason, I was unsurprised to see her expertly navigate the dense web of bikes, cars, and pedestrians. I leaned in close so that she could hear me over the buzz of the scooter and asked her if she was dating anyone.
“My step-father has a friend who hits on me a lot. I don’t like him too much, but I might give it a try.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He is in his fifties. And married.”
“Why would you ever want to date someone like that?!” I was shocked.
“No one else would want to date me and I don’t mind his age that much. I just wish he had more money. He is not rich enough to support a mistress, I think.”
I was so confused, “Why do you think no one else would date you?”
“Asian men don’t like girls with dark skin,” she said it like I should have known it already.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, “That is no reason to date a married man. I mean, when you move to America you will find that lots of people will want to date you.” I was selling the American Dream here. “You could date Asian men, White men, Hispanic men, Black men with the same color skin…”
“I don’t really consider myself black,” she interrupted me and I was scared of what she was going to say next. “My mother didn’t raise me to be that way.” The scooter was slowing down, but she was just getting started. “I don’t want people to see me that way, I want to be successful and take advantage of great opportunities. I can’t do that if people see me as a lazy, unattractive, and –what’s the word- attitudinal.”
After a stunned moment of silence, I reproached her, “I would expect that from someone else, but not from you. Your father is Black! You should know that those are just stereotypes.” I was on the defensive. The scooter was inching its way along.1008Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDF9KxEsHir
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“I’m not.”
“That’s because you are not black. You have been telling me this whole time that you are mixed, just like me,” the engine cut off completely and the wheels of the scooter completed their final revolutions.
“I am not like you.” Everything was silent and still, on the outside, at least. When I looked around I could see that we were in the outskirts of the city with few street lights and even fewer people, but I had no idea how to get back on my own.
“The battery died,” she cursed wickedly in Chinese and pulled out her phone to call someone for help. When her ride arrived to take her to take her to some kind of late-night karaoke bar, I declined to join them. Instead of giving me a ride home, Tia advised that I walk quickly to make it to the nearest bus stop before they stopped running for the night.
I ended up walking 45 minutes before I caught the very last bus on the way back to my apartment. During the whole journey, I was very aware of my being alone in a foreign country, but instead of being afraid, I dared anyone to look at my Black and Vietnamese self the wrong way. I was in the mood to check a box or two that night.
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