twinkies aren't just a hostess snack cake, baby

“so, what exactly is your background?” instinctively, i begin to sputter, “i’m white.” but people do not ask white people about their origins. i look down at my brown skin and reply, “i am asian-american. my grandparents emigrated from china.” although my grandparents emigrated from china, they largely shunned their heritage to merge into american culture. i was one of the only brown kids in my elementary school. i did not define myself by my color, but by their whiteness (the first of many definitions of self based on proximity). i could be considered a product of my environment. all of my closest friends are white. i am part of the “us,” and not the “them” because i too carry the invisible backpack of white etiquette. to others i am asian, or even latina, native american or hawaiian; however, to myself i am a member of the white middle class. my life is one of contradiction because my inner thoughts clash with my appearance. i will forever have to explain the relationship between the white woman who is my mother and myself. what does it mean that i was moved to tears the first time i truly realized that i am not white?

i wrote that for a sociology class junior year in college. i’ve been meaning to more fully ponder this topic for awhile, something consistently halting my effort before beginning. last week as i introduced the “who is an american?” project i designed for my u.s. history class i was again reminded of the my status as a cultural chameleon. or, to some, a twinkie. i asked my students, “am i an american?” “no, you’re something else… not totally american, maybe an american plus mexican or something… no, not mexican maybe native american…” the middle school social studies teacher recently asked her eighth grade class who an american is. the kids contemplated for a moment and responded that a blonde haired-blue eyed person who is white is the definition of an american. this coming from kids in an international school.

talking about things like this used to make me flush, become extremely uncomfortable, constantly working to defer attention to something else. once when i was in eighth grade, in a time of extreme self-doubt, i actually responded to the question of my background with the term “chink.” when i gained admittance to carleton college, “the harvard of the midwest,” one of my friends joked that it was because i could add to the asian column and make the campus more diverse. even though i was third in my high school class with a 3.9 g.p.a., the comment made me cower.

for the same sociology class mentioned above, i decided to “discover” the asian part of myself. what better time than asian cultural week (blacks and women get a whole month, asians are all about a single week)? for the first time i felt completely alienated from a group in which i was “supposed” to feel at home. accused of shrouding my “heritage,” though the heritage i knew best included chinese grandparents who never spoke chinese to us and take-out chinese food on friday nights, i was accused of veiling my background to fit in. to some of that asians at the gathering, i was the enemy. the sell out. the chinese girl with a whole table of white friends in the cafeteria. the chinese girl who didn’t know a word of cantonese or mandarin. the chinese girl who was a phony. and, also for the first time, i heard the term “twinkie.” yellow on the outside, white on the inside. i vowed never to make myself so vulnerable again.

as i recently flipped through the st. olaf brochure in the counselor’s office at woodstock i discovered my picture, taken during my body moveable class. part of me glowed at my accomplishment while another aspect of myself knew the truth, the photographer was looking for the brown girl to make the brochure look deceptively “diverse”—the catch-phrase of colleges in the new millennium.

i don’t know when checking the “other” or “asian/ pacific-islander” box became something to revel in rather than something disconcerting. the universal moment when we realize we are ourselves, unforgivingly. that we don’t need to be more asian, more “ethnic,” more “white.” that we get to define exactly what it is we will be, despite and because of all accompanying contradictions.

now repartee concerning my chinese-ness assert a closeness among my friends and i. my multicultural and mysterious browness has become akin to a party gag during my travels. i am a mysterious chameleon-like oddity, blending into the milieu. in china, thailand, vietnam, india, greece and ecuador i have been approached for directions in fluent mandarin, thai, vietnamese, hindi, greek, and spanish. i’ve come to revel in responding to, “where are you from?” with, “guess.” strangers have gotten into debates about my heritage. bhutanese. malaysian. tibetan. spanish. native american. naga. thai. indian. latina. greek. italian. i collect possible nationalities like stamps on a passport.

last week peter, an indian friend who lived most of his life in the united states, and i were running as the church crowd was walking around the chukker. a group of three foreigners blocked the middle of the road, so peter and i each ran around one of their sides. as we strode past, the man cried out “acca!” which is “good” in hindi. i replied, not purposefully loud enough to be heard but probably heeded nonetheless, “just because we’re brown doesn’t mean we only speak hindi” and threw my arms up into the air.

that’s the tricky thing. each of our appearances entail certain assumptions. it’s just taken me longer to accept the ones that come with being a cultural-chameleon-twinkie-chinese-american.