I am white-passing.
White-passing literally means I pass as a white person. It means that despite being 50% Chinese, to most people, I look 100% white.
Being a person of color is something I did not really consider until I was a teenager. I lived in New York until I was ten, surrounded by a diverse community, and our closest family friends were another Chinese family who was more integrated into their culture. It did not occur to me that I was different in the sense that I was a person of color, but that I was too white. While my best friend had perfect tan skin proving her ethnicity, I would rub dirt on my arms to be darker.
I looked significantly more Asian as a child than I do now.
This is a picture of my family from nine years ago. I’m in the middle, in front of my mom. This is an example of when I feel I looked Asian.
This is how I look now.
I spent a decent amount of my childhood going back and forth, critiquing my whiteness or my Asianness. My arms were too light, but my nose was too big. I wanted to be white, but I also wanted to be Asian.
When we moved out to Oregon, I was only nine. I did not realize I was a person of color until then. Though I was aware of my heritage, I was comfortable with it in my identity.
Oregon is a very white state. For ten years I had very few friends who were people of color, and I did not find a group of people who resonated the same minority experience as me until I came to George Fox.
George Fox is a very white community. This year the amount of students of color attending the school has reached a new record: a whopping 34%. I somehow became friends with people who shared my experiences, felt the experience of being whitewashed, and are moving forward in trying to make the world a more diverse place.
Having a group of friends like this has changed my life. It has helped me to become comfortable with who I am, and I’ve met many other white-passing people of color. I’ve learned that being white-passing mostly applies to white people, while my black, Asian, and Latinx friends are able to recognize my ethnicity in an instant.
Though I felt I lost all my culture after moving to Oregon, I am learning that it was never forgotten. I attended the first meeting of our campus Asian-American club last week and felt so seen and known. It didn’t matter that I looked white or ate at Panda Express or didn’t know Cantonese. I was enough.
I am learning more about myself and my culture each day. Because I am surrounded by so many other cultures, I expose myself to a bigger world and see more of God’s kingdom.
I don’t have a perfect view of myself, or a perfect understanding of my ancestry and culture. But when I’m surrounded by people who look like me, share my experiences, or see the world like me, I feel known.
