On My Identity — Collectively Chloe

Applying to medical school made me re-examine my identity. I had to convey who I was, what made me, me, and how that would make me a successful student and future physician. On the surface, I guess it is rather easy to identify oneself: Here are things I like, these are my ethnicities, this is where I’m from. In part, this collection of facts explains my function in the world. But internally comprehending my identity is what trips me up.

Some days I am sure I am simply a half-Jew, half-Korean, Midwesterner, humanities lover, foodie, and future physician. Some days, however, I can’t even begin to see where I fit in.

Since I appear more Asian than white, or at least, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t pass as white, this question of identity came to mind in light of the recent recognition of violence towards the AAPI community. First off, I found my emotional response surprisingly strong after hearing the stories of these needless attacks. When I saw the photos and fundraisers for the victims of the Atlanta shootings, I teared up. Even “good” news made me tear up. I saw Asian American influencers that I follow post videos about awareness, history, and the problems surrounding the model minority myth. I watched a clip of Sandra Oh during a protest in Pittsburgh ask for Asian Americans to come together; she proclaimed “I am proud to be Asian! I belong here!” and that made me teary as well. After recognizing my strong feelings, three sets of questions arose:

1. Are me and my family in danger? Are my friends?

2. Why didn’t I cry when I heard the stories of violence toward the Black community? Did I not feel as strongly? Of course I support BLM, tuned in more consciously to my own biases, and read more about race relations especially in the context of medicine, but I wasn’t tearing up in the same instinctual way.

3. Do I even have a right to feel this way? After all, I’m not fully Asian–I grew up in a white community. The most (stereotypical) Asian things we did were take our shoes off in the house, go to our local Korean restaurant frequently, and eat many of our meals with a side of sticky white rice.

Let’s explore these three points.

1) Are we, my loved ones and I, in danger?

I’ll be real: I’ve lived a privileged, sheltered, and naïve life so far. I have never really felt in danger, ever. I’m a smaller, younger, female. I’ve walked around NYC and Boston by myself at night. Despite hearing horror stories of fake Uber car abductions, school shootings, and random attacks on young women, I never felt like “that could have been me.” Until the recent media coverage of anti-AAPI violence.

In the midst of the pandemic, with half of the country subscribing to the rhetoric of COVID-19 being the “China virus,” I ignorantly existed in my own liberal echo chambers. I falsely believed this racist and illogical rhetoric was only used by a small minority of the country. Recent events, however, demonstrate otherwise. Cities like Los Angeles and NYC where minorities abound, where voters consistently lean liberal, have been home to many of the attacks I have heard about. To some, I might look like the victims of these anti-AAPI attacks. The other aspect of this violence that made me feel unsafe was the type of victim: often female and/or elderly. These are people that are sometimes seen as “weak,” that can’t easily defend themselves. They are vulnerable. I am equal parts disgusted and terrified that these are the people being targeted. Furthermore, it’s unacceptable that despite having video evidence and photos of these attacks, it still seems like no one (in charge) is doing anything effective to combat or prevent further violence.

Before these events, despite how toxic the model minority myth is and how it originated by white people in order to retain power, I falsely believed that I benefited from this myth. Never mind my anxiety to be good at everything I tried, to succeed in school, to do all of this while remaining humble, quiet, and happy. I thought the pressure to succeed, according to stereotypes, motivated me and shaped my personality. I was never accused of wrongdoing; I never had anyone tell me I couldn’t achieve something. I had examples from both of my parents that hard work = success. I also think I often look younger than I am, maybe not anymore (thank you dark circles), but pre-panorama I believe people were nicer to me because I looked “innocent.”

I believed the myth. Since I conformed to the stereotype, I thought I couldn’t be harmed. But bigoted people won’t care about my academic accomplishments or future goals. They won’t care where you’re from, what you do, or who you are. They just see non-white and it’s over.

For instance, my mom, a Korean immigrant and physician, was doing her weekly grocery shopping for our whole household (we love and appreciate mom for keeping us fed). In her unassuming 5’1” frame, she was walking out of the store with her bags. My mom takes a brisk walking pace and so she walked around a lady that was in front of her. After my mom had walked ahead of said lady, my mom heard a shout directed at her from behind, “Go back to where you came from.” Again, I naively thought things like this couldn’t happen in our suburban, affluent town, until they did.

2) Why didn’t I cry during the media coverage of the stories of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor last year?

I spoke a bit with my roommate about this question. Do I lack empathy because I didn’t cry in response to the violence against Black Americans? I started to feel like a bad person. If I was truly empathetic, I would have the same teary response to all stories of racially motivated violence. However, my roommate made a point that made me feel this wasn’t a complete moral failure on my part. She basically said it’s not that I didn’t feel sadness and outrage after hearing story after story of anti-Black violence. It’s that, unlike with those stories, the women killed in the Atlanta shootings could have been my mom. My aunts. My grandmother. My family. They looked like me. This is the same reason I get so excited seeing Koreans in media like in Parasite, Minari, Grey’s Anatomy, and Killing Eve (I might be a Sandra Oh stan). In other words, the violence resonated more deeply with me because I could more strongly imagine our similarities. Does that make me unempathetic or a bad person? I am starting to think maybe not.

3) Do I have a right to feel this way?

I have always been a person that cares about how others perceive me. My ethnic ambiguity makes it difficult for me to see how I fit in or predict what other groups might think about me. Do Asian Americans tend to think I don’t really understand what it’s like to be Asian? Do white Americans even recognize that half of me is white? I know I have tended to identify more with Asian Americans, but does that make me a part of the community or just someone on the outside peeking in?

I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out why I identify as more Asian than white. Is it my appearance? My natural interests? Some childhood experience? Or is it totally random?

For a while I believed it was a combination of my hobbies and the friends I had in high school. As I focused more on my academics, violin, and tennis, I noticed that a lot of other people with the same interests were Asian. Given that my high school was only 5% or so Asian, I started to see the same people a lot; naturally, I grew close to them. Beyond that, I found these friends tended to care about school to the same degree that I did. Not that it’s mutually exclusive–being Asian and caring about school–but these are the patterns I tended to see in my specific friend group. And beyond that, they are still some of my closest friends today.

More recently I think this interest in my Asian side developed much earlier. I remember loving when my uncle came to Ohio to visit because it meant that we could go to my grandma’s house for a Korean feast. She would scoop too much onto my plate and snip hot meat off the bones for me, but I would eat it all because I didn’t know when the opportunity would strike again. I discovered Kpop sometime around middle school which also led me to watch a few Korean dramas as well.

I remember sitting in the kitchen when my mom, her sisters, and her mother all talked in a mixture of Korean and English. I didn’t know what they were saying, but I liked hearing the intensity, inflection, and emphasis in their voices and their loud laughter accompanied by even louder clapping.

A memory I just recalled a few days ago was my fascination with this one picture book I still have in my closet called, “The Korean Cinderella.” It must have been elementary school when I liked this book because I started reading chapter books pretty early on in elementary school. Anyways, I remember laying on the floor of my room reading through this Cinderella story retold in a Korean context. Something about the beautiful hanbok and the fact that I connected this story with my mom and her family made me love it. I came back to it often. Maybe that is where it all started. Or maybe it was my dad and others telling me how much I looked like my mom. There is this picture of my mom and her sisters outside of their first house in America, in Cleveland, OH, when she was 11 or 12; when I first found the photo, I thought for a second that it was a photo of myself.

I still often feel like I don’t see where I fit in. Sometimes, I am grateful for my mixed family. Both sides have rich histories that I will continue to explore for the rest of my life, and one day pass on to my children. Other times, I think it would be easier if I was just one ethnicity. If I just had one identity to explain to others. But in the end, at least I can say for sure that I am American. Next time someone asks me, “What are you?” hopefully that will be enough.

Note: If I said anything ignorant or maybe something you’d like to chat about, please reach out if you feel inclined so I can address it