What it Means to be "American"

It’s funny really

Listening to you rush through and list off all that you think you know: Korean,

            Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Hongkong-nese

When all you have to do is ask, I won’t bite

That’s right, I won’t bite because small Asian girls never do

Never speak unless spoken to, never even think about raising your voice to a

  volume higher than the nearly inaudible static given off by speakers

People will never take you seriously and you’ll never be more than background

            noise

And it’s sad and frustrating, frustrating, frustrating that we are expected to have no

            voice.  

But what does it matter, why do you question further where I’m from

I’m Taiwanese by the way, one ethnicity that never ends up on your list

I was born here in California just like you, born and raised in sunny LA, not on

            some distant, foreign shores across the ocean

Oh, it’s because you can’t be American, you’re not American, you will never be

            American

Of course only my white uncle is labeled as American by outsiders

Since American equals white and white equals American

Never express an emotion other than calm contentment

Don’t laugh gleefully like those children, don’t yell with anger laced in your voice

            like those children, don’t jump and shout with joy like those children, don’t

            whine and complain like those children

Ignore your thoughts and feelings, evoke your inner China doll and sit still as you

            did for your portrait that hangs above the stairs  

So it’s not surprising that I am as emotionally inept as I am today

And it’s sad and frustrating that we are hushed and told and expected to ignore such

            an integral part of humanity.

And the double standard that exists, do you even hear yourself?

Act Asian, study all the time, help me with my homework, keep your mouth shut,

            only hang out with Asians

But don’t act too Asian

Oh, make sure you act American too

Don’t speak your language in the public world, Chinese, Korean, whatever it is, they

            all sound like identical ching chong ling anyway

Dress like us, talk like us, eat like us, walk like us, act like us, be like us

But you’ll never be one of us.

You know what, none of that matters and it all matters at the same time

The expectations I do and do not meet of how I should live my life

Expectations set by people that don’t even know me

Standards that we cannot meet and cannot live up to, that make clinical depression

            alarmingly, increasingly common among us

I will build and break and mold and shape my life the way I want

Because I am more than Taiwanese, I am more than Asian,

I am me.