I have been experiencing this for a while. It’s sometimes difficult for people I meet to acknowledge both me being American and Asian. And so one of those gets erased through the process and it’s usually my Asian identity. I don’t know if it’s because I was adopted and so ‘not really Asian’, but whatever it is, it really bothers me.
I can’t ignore that part of me, and I wouldn’t want to, it’s a part of me. Whether or not I spend time, or spent time living in China, that doesn’t change where I was born or my history.
It bothers me when people ignore it because it doesn’t seem authentic to them. Yes I could have done more to ‘assert my Asian identity’, but should I have to? I don’t think so. I don’t like feeling like I have to ‘prove’ I’m Asian.
I don’t feel like I make people ‘prove’ their identity to me. So why should it mean that I should have to?
It makes me feel quite insulted and disrespected.
But maybe it also reflects something I felt as a kid, not knowing how to accept another identity I didn’t feel like I could belong to, or wasn’t accepted into. Maybe it comes from a reflection of how I felt when I didn’t want to acknowledge that identity of mine. When I was younger, I felt like I couldn’t win because if I tried to ‘act’ Asian, then there would be people, or I felt there would be people, who would call my bluff.
So perhaps it reflects my own fears as a child/teenager, but I’m past that now. I’m ready to start accepting both parts/words in my self identity.