identity politics

what happens when you look like everyone else in the crowd, but you don’t belong to the crowds at all?

For instance if I had a friend who would be mostly American but looks Chinese but feels completely out of place in a Chinese crowd, and what about me? why do I always feel so comfortable in a Chinese crowd, and prefer to be, anyways?

The Chinese side was always puling me, had always pulled me. It was as if that side would pull me aside and whisper, “Hey, you belong here, you know? not over there.” and I feel like the reason it’s able to do that is because of what my grandparents had instilled in me, and one way they did this for me was through language. Language was just a portal through which I entered the kingdom of Chinese stuff, and it connected me to a whole culture that I thought about forgetting. And slowly as time moved on, I forgot about forgetting and really moved into appreciating.

And it made me think about people and how they chose their identities– because I really do think it’s up to them. I think often about how I chose my identity: the leave-taking notwithstanding. But it was because I felt so connected to my Chinese family that their leave-taking had a massive influence on me.