Multiple Ethnicities Causing an Identity Crisis
Many issues in the United States affect minorities because of the diversity formed from generations of immigration. America is made up of immigrants and the sons and daughters of those immigrants. I am a daughter of an immigrant family but one that is a little different than others. Growing up as biracial has made me confused as well as exasperated with the way people of color are treated. My parents are from very different ethnicities. My father is German-American. He grew up in Frankfurt, Germany on an American Military Base. His parents and his six siblings traveled to America when my grandfather was stationed in Washington. On the other hand, my mother is one hundred percent full Chinese. She grew up in a poor town up in the mountains of Qingdao, China. She was able to immigrate to America to graduate school. My parents are the basis of what makes me me. I have grown up to be neither American or Chinese. A mixture of the two, with my Chinese heritage usurping my American. As a child, I attended weekly Chinese school in my mothers hope that I would be connected to my Chinese roots and not be like other American Born Chinese(ABC) who can not speak their own parent’s language. I attended that school for ten years. Now being mixed is becoming increasingly common nowadays, but over a decade and a half ago it wasn’t as prevalent. I was friends with another mixed girl in a similar situation to me. But the difference with her was you could tell she was “mixed.” I have not been blessed with such good genes. My identity is constantly in flux because I feel no real connection with my parents. I feel that I look nothing like them, in their eyes, I am neither “Asian” enough nor “white” enough. Growing up, I have continuously been told by my mother Asian friends that I am lucky. That I am born in the year of the rabbit, with my American citizenship and all the opportunity I have been blessed with here in America. That I am lucky to not look like my mother who has the basic Asian profile of small eyes, flat nose, and round face. That I am fortunate, my father’ sunken eyes, straight nose, and sharp jawline have given me straight eyebrows, double eyelids, and cute nose all because of my mixed ethnicity. My mother’ Asian friends only see the outside effects of being mixed. It’s something interesting to talk to, and it keeps people’ attention. But once the interest and curiosity wear off, people find you to be strange. It’ a mask of someone that doesn’t have the same cultural heritage as their parents but is just trying so hard to blend in. Up until the recent years, I have noticed that possessing the characteristics of biracial or multiracial is something that is not acknowledged by many people as a real identity. For example, while taking the STAR tests as a child during the beginning of the test one must fill out one’ ethnicity as well as name and address. I have always had mixed feeling regarding my choice as a child to only circle one answer. The bubble while quick to complete has given me angst in the future. These standardized test always have a clinical way of categorizing people has ever managed to bring up the question “What are you?” People who have met me nowadays are more politically correct than they were when I was a child. They have more tact some even think before they speak. But as a child, often after meeting someone for the first time the question “What are you” gets asked. I have always said “Half Chinese half American, ” but I have always just wanted to scream “that I am human, and that my racial identity doesn’t make up who I am.”