Identity

I guess I've been reading some stuff about cultural identity for my labor unions seminar. Something about first generation Americans having identity crises. I've never realized that I had one myself, until I began reflecting on it just recently.

I'm thinking back at my old friends. How stupid was I to hang out with these vicious girls? I guess they were not mean to me, but they were in general very nasty little girls. I never found myself agreeing with them on anything. They made fun of people, were very bullyish in conversation. It was funny, I guess, for me as a bystander. They called someone Wombat for three years. I think about it, and I was so dumb. They pressured me, telling me some pretty insulting things, that at the time, I thought were okay, so I brushed it off. They would make fun of "Chinamen" and said, "Wendy's not Asian, she's Mexican inside."

Gosh, I was such an idiot for having hung out with those mean girls for as long as I did. She told me I was her best friend. I wouldn't see why. I never felt like she was my best friend. Nominally, she was, because I was her's. But I never connected with them on the level I connect with my BFF. There was no extant pressure for me to fit in, but I felt it obligatory that I made the effort to somehow be like them. I remember for a while, they all wore Addidas sneakers. Not the running shoes. But I never asked my mom specifically for that style of shoes, because they were rather expensive. I don't like to spend any more than $20 on shoes. I don't think it's worth it. Anyways, I never asked for them. But at an outlet once, we went to Addidas. I got running shoes. Shoot, I wore those to school as if they were the casual styles. And I was thinking about that today, and I am so ashamed at how I gave into this preposterous peer pressure. It made me laugh, except I couldn't laugh out loud, because I was on Bruin Walk by myself. I think I was smiling though, and people must have thought I was a creeper.

But getting down to business, I wanted to write out what I really feel inside, in terms of my cultural identity. I have always known I was Chinese. Without doubt. That is what I am--my blood, my psyche, my lifestyle, it's all Chinese. But as a young girl, I have always led a sort of double life. One in which I am myself, when I'm with my family, and one at school, when I'm with friends. My family is where I learned my culture, so with them is also where I practice my culture. But at school, I have always felt a pressure to be American. I've definitely been a target of racism, when young ignorant children taunt "ching chong." I used to think it was funny. I used to brush it off. "Oh that's not me. I speak good English." So in order to detach myself from that negative racism, I denied myself at school. I think this had most affected me in middle school. I made non-Asian friends and refused to speak Chinese at school--actually that began in elementary school. I also wouldn't let anybody go to my house. I didn't want them to see the beautiful Chinese paintings and artifacts that my dad collects. It's so sad that in that period of my life, I didn't want to admit my culture at all.

In high school, I got rid of those "friends," and I am really loving that I did. They moved away, but eventually came back. I'm just glad I never got to hanging out with them again. I stuck to my new friends. My group of friends in high school were nice, funny and smart people. It was a beautiful friendship. And I feel like I can share with them, without getting asked ridiculously ignorant questions--which is what I felt was scaring me from coming to grips with my identity, not only with my family, but with my friends and everyone.

Also, I don't feel so much that there is a clash between cultures in my case, between Chinese and American. I always felt I had two separate disjoint identities. They never crossed or clashed. One stayed at home, and one stayed at school.

And a side note. I'm scared to tell my mom I don't believe in her religion. My parents never put pressure on us to learn anything about their (actually, my mom's) religion. But, I think that having grown up around it, my mom assumes that we believe in Kwan Yin just as she does. But I don't. And when she tells me to burn incense, and I say "Aww, no..." She kind of gets mad at me, like "Do you want the Heavens to beat your a$$?" And I'm like, how can I tell you this. I'm agnostic.

I really like the saying that an Agnostic is an Atheist with no balls. But I really don't think that the two concepts are necessarily related. Agnostics are more skeptic, because we understand the slightness of the chance that there is any knowledgeable force presiding over the Universe, we know there is no Theologian's God. But Atheists on the other hand, believe they know for sure that nothing is out there. By claiming there's NOTHING, then they are essentially saying they have all the knowledge of the Universe, and can come to such a conclusion. Therefore, I would say that I am agnostic. I'm not sure if I would ever be that confident with my mind to become an atheist. I don't believe that is a solvable problem for man.