A Story in Three Parts

matsuri
Originally uploaded by sillyhapa.

Part I: Reliving Augusts Past

If you didn't know already, I haven't done anything very traditionally Japanese since I've been here. I went to one temple with Flueckiger Sensei and briefly remembered how unenlightening such visits can be. Moreover, well, ok, I don't feel like explaining myself, but the point is that I had been unimpressed and uninterested in such things.

But once upon a time, the Obon Festival used to play a big part in my life. At least, I think it did, but I can't really remember. All I know is, this Saturday as I walked into the lantern-lit matsuri, Japanese tunesters warbling in that traditional fashion, small children in yukata dancing in a big circle around the taiko...it reminded me of my childhood. Odori lessons in the basement where I never really learned anything, dressing up in yukata and eating Japanese food, and always feeling silly but proud.

Part II: Feeling Silly But Proud

Attending those Obon Festivals marks my first memory of wanting to be more Asian. Amidst all of those dancing, singing, sushi-eating Japanese Americans, I always had a feeling that they looked at me and saw a little white girl who somehow knew how to dance japanese dances. I always wanted to shout at them, No! I'm half Japanese! I wished that my eyelids didn't have a crease so that my face would show my ethnicity. I wished that they knew I was one of them.

And now I finally realize that all the wishing in the world won't make it so; I'm simply not Japanese. The feeling hit me like a wall of bricks a couple of days ago when one of my new friends started talking about hapas and I realized he didn't know that I was half-Japanese. Instead of simply filling him in on his missing information, I started asking around the table. "When you first met me, did you think I was white?" The answer was always yes. Always yes.

I went home and started asking other people. Their answers were all the same. You're white. You're white. You're white.

Part III: In Which I Lose Everything

If race is only a social construct, and inside we are all still made of star stuff, what does it mean to not look like your race? What does it mean when you are only half of that race to begin with, and a watered-down half at that? In this case, does your race even matter?

I have always been so proud to be half-Japanese, so empowered by my biraciality. While I have never, ever thought of myself as white, I have often accidentally thought of myself as Asian. Being identified as Asian by the Office of Student Affairs at Pomona College, and being embraced by the AAMP mentors also gave me confidence that my Asian half deserved attention.

But today I feel that I am living a fraud. If everyone, upon first meeting me, assumes that I am white, does that not MAKE me white? I'm like the litle manchild who was raised by wolves, who tries to run with the wolves, but one day realizes that he's all gangly pink flesh and finally needs to move into the village. There's no need for him to run anymore; instead of the hunted, he blends in with the hunters.

I still believe it's a worthy cause to fight for the rights of Asian Americans, as we do with AAMP and my other various race-based organizations, but whose cause am I fighting for? I now believe that it is not my own. There is no cultural understanding, no laughter of recognition, no empathy. I might as well have signed up to be an African American mentor, and simply admitted that I was a person who was concerned with race and social equality, but who has never experienced discrimination or racism, and never will.

I want to send back my scholarship from the Japanese American Citizens League, I want to cancel my membership to the Asian American Journalists Association. I feel guilty that I was a mentor within a group that does not allow white students to become mentors. Perhaps they should change their rules, given that they accidentally accepted me.

What about me is Asian American at all? I did not grow up in an Asian American community, my family is not bilingual, I do not experience the prejudices that come along with being Asian American. What do I have to offer the Asian American community? When my future employers look at my face, will they see someone who is submissive, a lotus blossom, who doesn't understand English, or will they see a white woman? And when I excel in my field, will I be able to say that I am paving the way for other Asian American women?

ouch, this hurts my heart. Why didn't anyone ever tell me this before? So this is my burning question: What part of me is Asian American, and, more importantly, what difference does it make?