What life's like when your looks don't tell your
story.
I am the fifth-generation descendant of a
pioneer Chinese-American family, but I have red hair and freckles. My
Caucasian face has marked me as an outsider in the hinese community (even in my
own family), while my Chinese heart has forever made me feel like an outsider in
the large white culture in which I live. I have lived my entire life in
physical conflict - my face does not match the nthnicity I claim as my own.
I had a typical Chinese-American childhood, meaning that my family insisted I
learn as much as possible about my ancestors. My aunt told stories of my
great-great-grandfather, who came to this country to help build the
transcontinental railroad. My grandfather recounted tales about my great
grandfather, who, although illiterate, became a successful merchant, was one of
the founders of Los Angeles Chinatown, and married my great-grandmother when it
was against the law for Chinese and Caucasians to marry. When I was very
young, my grandmother used to take me around at wedding banquets to introduce me
to relatives, carefully explaining that each of them had a different title
depending on birth order and whether they came from the maternal or paternal
side. All of those people had black hair and lovely golden skin, but I can
remember how confused I was when I'd see my reflection in mirrors or store
windows. Still, I've always known exactly where I fit in the family tree.
No matter what my skin an dhair colour, I will always be Fong See's freat-granddaughter,
Sumoy's niece, Gim's third cousin once removed.
Since my face and my ethnicity are in conflict, how do I express my cultural
background? The same way everyone does - by what is in my home, by how I
dress, by what I eat and, of course, by how I see the world and how the world
sees me. My home is decorated with Chinese scrolls and a large number of
Chinese antiques. Although I try to avoid clothes with frogs or mandarin
collars (too obvious), I do love Chinese silk, Chinese prints, Chinese peasnat
jewelery. While I don't have a lot of time to cook Chinese food, I've
grown to love Ken Hom's Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood,
which is filled with the kinds of home-style dishes that my grandfather and my
father used to make. And lathough I know that all mothers nibble at their
children'sleftovers on occasion, I feel compelled to eat every last piece of
gristle and such every last bit of marrow out of my kid's disgarded chicken
bones, because that is what a woman from the Chinese peasant class is raised to
do.
In America, I don't quite fit in, no matter where I go. In Chinatown,
waiters offer offer forks or reguse to bring me a particular dish because its
'too strange for American tastes". I ;ve had my own blood relatives
discuss my appearance in front of me as though I wasn't there, commenting on my
build ("not fat like most Americans") and concern for family and
history ("She expresses filial piety unlike most Americans").
I've been in conversations where someone who looks Chinese has said "You're
more Chinese than I am". Its usually meant as an insult: Why would
anyone want to be so backward? Although they're ashamed of their heritage,
I cherish mine. (But to be fair I've never had to spend a day lookin
Chinese in a culture that values being white.) On the other had, some
Chinese Americans - usually younger, college educated and stringently
politically correct - see me as too "assimilated'. To them, that's
the ultimate dirty word, the ultimate sellout. There's no way I could ever
understand what it means to be Chinese.
However, I do look 'right' in the larger white culture. So it's true that
I've never been the overt victim of either or positive or negative sterotypes.
No one's accused me of being good at math or science. No one's ever made a
pass at me because I fit some sexual sterotype of the China doll. But at
my baby shoer, which was held in a Chinese restaurant, a couple of my firneds
mistake my father for a waiter, calling him 'surly' and 'slow'. When my
husband and I bought our first house, the housing laws still stated that we
couldn't sell the house to anyone of "Ethiopian" or
"Mongolian" descent. That statewide law barring ownership of
property had kept my family - even those who had only one-quarter Chinese blood
and looked about as Chinese as I do - confiend to Chinatown for nearly a
century, meaning that assismilation was not an option to be argued over at
cocktail parties or at academia symposia.
I may not look Chinese, but I've felt these slights deeply, maybe even more than
justified , because my 'face' weemed to suggest to others a shared attitude of
ignorance and racism. When I speak about my books and my research of
Chinese-American culture, I talk about the history of the miscegenation laws,
and how today people can marry whomever they like. The proof of this
change is in the world faces of children I see in Minneapolix, Missoula and
Miami. I can always tell an audiene that I may be an aberration today with
my red hair and Chinese heart, but that in another 20 years they'll be able to
meet someone and really not know what she is by her face.
In a sense this mixing of cultures is already happening. Today people such
as Dean ain (Aisain and Caucasian), Keanu Reeves (Caucasian, Asian and
Hawaiian), Mariey Carey (Black, Venezuelan and Caucasian) and Tiger Woods
(Black, Caucasian, Native American and Asian) can become celebrities without
being condemned or ostracized for their mixed blood. This doesn't mean
that they aren't occasionally called onto the politically correct carpet by
people who feel that they identify too much with one side, or , conversely, for
not wanting to be the poster child for this or that race, but it doesn mean that
on television, Dean Cain can get the white girl and no angry viewers will launch
a letter-writing campaign condemning it or enact a law forbidding it.
We've come a long way from my grandparents' day when they had to leave the
country to get married, but I still feel like an outsider, unable to match my
face to my heart. Yet even I have moments of acceptance. I like to think
of one o f my first trips to China when a group of villagers finally got
past the shock of my face and hair and instead began to look for our physical
similarities. The women pinched my arms and then their own to demonstrate
that we had the same proportions. They put my hands on their face, then
patted mine, remarking on its Southchina shape. I was uttering and
blissfully embraced for who I am. I was no longer just my face.
I was also my heart. - by Lisa
See * Original appeared in Self
Magazine 11.1999
