30 yr. old Chinese American female

Q: Were you born in the U.S.? If not, where were you born?
A: No – Hong Kong

Q: What different cities, states, and/or countries have you lived in?
A: Hong Kong (10 yrs), Fremont (7 yrs), Boston (4 yrs), Berkeley (3 yrs), Oakland (almost 6 years)

Q: Which do you consider your hometown (‘the place you most consider home’):
A: Bay Area

Q: Involvements in clubs or organizations (ethnic or non-ethnic apply):
A: wow! This question makes me feel old, though I hope to get more involved in serving in some nonprofits soon. Right now only involvement at my church, First Covenant Church of Oakland.

Q: What gives purpose to your life?
A: To be of use to others

Q: What is the racial and ethnic background of your closest friends? If they are of multiple ethnic backgrounds feel free to indicate their backgrounds.
A: Chinese, specifically 2nd / 3rd generation Chinese-Americans. I think it came mostly from attending Chinese churches until very recently – so the people I interacted with in a deeply personal way just happened to be Chinese. But I don’t think I interact with them in a way that’s particularly “Asian”, or about “Asian issues”.

Q: When and how did you become aware of concepts of your race and/or ethnicity?
A: Just a disclaimer that I prefer to use the term “ethnicity” over “race” – the latter I feel is a weird American construct that lumps me in with people vastly different from me based on my skin color alone (though I probably don’t feel as cheated as people from a whole continent lumped in as “hispanic”). Thinking about these questions at work (with regard to culture’s influence on health behavior) got me kind of anal about the usage of “race”...I think I only use that word when I’m joking around now!

The very first time I became acutely aware of my ethnicity was probably on the night we immigrated. It wasn’t the first time I had been out of Hong Kong, but the first time it became clear to me that I was going to be different from the people around me for the long haul. Ironically, this realization came not while interacting with white people (ok I’m such a hypocrite – “Caucasians”, whatever that means), but with other Chinese people who were born here. I expected them to understand me since we looked the same, but quickly discovered that they were a whole different ethnic group and I couldn’t depend much on them to guide me in my adjustment. Starting school and not knowing the language also made me acutely aware of how I was different from others (while lots of kids made an effort to help me adjust, it was the 3 Chinese-American kids in my class who made fun of my speech and dress). I distinctly remember that because having “my own” turn from me was a such painful experience, I spent my teenage years trying to run away from facing my own ethnicity and trying really hard to blend in – losing my accent, not telling people where I was born, etc. Ironically, that made me more acceptable to the very peers that were hurtful.

The second time I thought about my ethnicity was in college, prompted by some creative writing classes I was taking. I was really forced to decide who I was going to be by going away to a college 3,000 miles away – it was a great time. Reading Jhumpa Lahiri and Amy Tan helped me to know that others had similar experiences of displacement and making difficult choices to survive emotionally through that change. Initially, the teacher gave us assignments to write about what we know – much of that being childhood memories b/c we were only 17 or 18(!), so in a sense I was forced to think about what I’d put away for 7 or 8 years at that point. Still, it took a few years to come to terms with my ethnic background (truly having grown up in 2 places – so, “Chinese-American” in a different sense than Chinese who were born here), and giving people a more complicated answer than they expect when they ask me where I’m from. Believe it or not, some of my high school friends didn’t know I wasn’t born here until I was in my early 20's because I never gave up that information!

The 3rd time was teaching English in China the 2nd time around. I was the only one on my team who didn’t grow up speaking Mandarin (even though they were all born in the US), and our liaison from China kept sticking it to me (“why don’t you speak Chinese [meaning Mandarin]?”, he’d say, and I’d think to myself “I do speak Chinese, just not YOUR kind of Chinese.”). It threw me into a lot of insecurity that summer (it was a horrible trip because of that), and I realize from that experience that I tend to emphasize a lot more that I’m from Hong Kong than China. Even now, when people ask me where I was born, I almost never say China because technically HK wasn’t a part of China at that point. I also became more aware of how growing up in a British colony also adds another spin to my ethnic background – it’s a strange mix of liking British things and being able to relate to British culture because they were present while I was growing up, but also feeling inadequate with your own ethnicity because that’s the nature of growing up in occupied land. On my first summer trip most of my students’ attitude was, “You poor thing, you’ve been deprived of culture from the Motherland, let me show you all the things you have to be proud of” – which was true, and they were very welcoming and not the least condescending. The 2nd trip was totally different, but I’m glad it worked out that way because I was able to separate the attitude of that one man from most Chinese that met in China.

Q: What language do your parents speak at home? What is their predominant language on an everyday basis?
A: Cantonese. Though when I talk to my parents, they speak Cantonese to me and I speak English back, mostly because I can’t say anything of consequence in Cantonese – my vocabularly is that of a 10 year old.

Q: What languages do you speak? What language do you speak most at home?
A: English with my husband. Though I’m conflicted about what to do when we have kids b/c my husband grew up speaking Mandarin and I speak Cantonese, and neither of us are very good at speaking those dialects now.

Q: What was the highest level of education your parents received (grade school, high school, community college, university, trade school, etc.)? What do your parents do for a living?
A: Mom went to teaching college (which she doesn’t consider a 4-year college, weirdly enough), and dad went to university. Mom was a teacher in Hong Kong, then worked in the ESL program for a few years here before switching over to real estate. My dad was an electrical engineer in Hong Kong, then became a businessman in the tech industry when we came here. They’re both retired now.

Q: Do you feel like their expectations of gender roles are ‘traditional’?
A: No.

Q: Have they ever expressed career expectations for you? What were those expectations?
A: Less so than for other Chinese-Americans I know. I think I put more pressure on myself to find a “useful” profession (i.e. in the sciences). I remember my parents pressuring me to do well in school (um, in all subjects, so that includes non-science and math subjects too), but not into specific professions. Though once I went into the sciences, there were occasional questions about when I was going to get my PhD (so I suppose there was pressure to get the highest academic degree you could in any given field), but I think that’s their old school understanding that you will go farther in a field, have more job security with the most advanced degree. So I know their advice came out of love and concern for me, not bragging rights to their friends (!). Growing up, I remember them being very supportive of my writing hobby and even suggested I take summer jobs doing that. Of course in my naivete (I wanted to build my resume – sheesh! If I could have those summers back...), I turned that down and worked in a LAB growing yeast instead.

Q: Have you ever dated outside of your ethnicity?
A: No, but I sure had crushes on boys of every ethnicity I could think of!

Q: What is your educational status?
A: I have a Master’s in Public Health

Q: How do you define academic success?
A: That’s a great question. Until very recently (like...until I was like 28), it meant I had to get an A in class, and it should come easily. Even after MIT (where I was a straight Bs and Cs student)! Now – it’s whether I get the concepts behind the material and can put it in some usable context.

Q: How do you define success in general?
A: That’s also a great question, and I really struggle with that even now. I suppose it’s whether you meet your stated goal, or some unexpected outcome that you can learn from, even if it’s a negative outcome. Sorry, I know that sounds lame because it’s vague.

Q: Throughout your time in school, how often did you encounter people who assumed you were smart because you were Asian?
A: Only a few times when I first immigrated here. But I was ahead in math (simply because they taught math faster there), so they may have been right to assume that I’d do better than they would in math class! But I never felt that way from junior high on – mostly, I think, because I was in the honors track, and then, well, when you go to MIT, there are Asians everywhere and you learn your place on the smartness totem pole very quickly, and I was *definitely* somewhere near the bottom there.

Q: Have you visited the country or countries of your ethnic origin/s?
A: Yes – both Hong Kong numerous times after we immigrated, and China for 2 summers.

Q: How knowledgeable are you about the history of the country or countries?
A: I really stink at it. In college I took a 20th century Chinese history class before going to China to teach; that, combined with having interacted with other Chinese my age there, I feel that I understand its recent history. But anything before the nationalist movement – forget it! My parents don’t really know very much either, so they weren’t really helpful when I had questions growing up.

Q: Please list at least 3 feelings you had while visiting.
A: Unable to express myself adequately (my Chinese is that of a 10 year old, and being someone who likes to connect with others on a deep level, it was really, really frustrating), shame (I may look it, but I’m not fully Chinese), finally understanding the ways we are similar and different.

Q: Do you feel a sense of belonging when you are in the company of people, a majority who are of your ethnic group? How strongly do you feel this on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being not at all, 5 being very strongly)?
A: Probably a 2 also. It just recently occurred to me that because of the massive waves of emigration from Hong Kong in the late 80’s (when Hong Kong’s handover plan back to China was announced, to take place in 1997), there is a whole generation of folks just like me here, in Canada (Vancouver and Toronto), and Australia. We have all found vastly different ways of adjusting – I have some childhood friends from that generation who are fully bicultural (I envy them – didn’t have the emotional strength for that!), who have chosen to “assimulate”, like me (I’m a little too cynical to use the term “acculturate” – I don’t think it happens very often b/c the host culture is not terribly open to incorporating the immigrants’ culture), and those who never learned English very well, prefer to be with other Chinese-speakers and longed to move back to Hong Kong (some of which finally did). So, when I’m with them, I don’t feel a huge sense of belonging simply because we’ve chosen many divergent ways of coping. I wish I could feel a greater sense of belonging though – I think we would have a lot to talk about.

Q: Do you feel a sense of belonging when you are in the company of people, a majority who are Asian? How strongly do you feel this on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being not at all, 5 being very strongly)?
A: Probably a 2. I actually feel quite uncomfortable being in the company of a large group of Asians – I don’t know if it’s from my initial difficult experiences with American-born Chinese, or from going to a Chinese church for years before deciding that a church full of Chinese people is not conducive to the growth of my faith at this point in my life.

Q: Do you listen to music, watch movies, eat the food of your ethnic country or countries? How often do you do these things on a regular basis on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being not at all, 5 being very often)?
A: Food is around 4 – it’s the food that makes me feel most at home and crave when I’m sick! I’m not connected to Hong Kong movies or music though (1).

Q: Do you believe that one’s emotional needs are less important than fulfilling one’s responsibilities?
A: That’s also a great question. I used to think the latter, but now I’m learning to tend to the former.