Baba Would Say

“One of the craziest mixed Asian life stories ever”

Mixed Asian Media - September 30, 2022

By Charlie Bahr

Whenever I would ask my Baba about why she moved to the United States, she would say, “You know, I just did it because that is what I wanted to do.” She never really talked about the difficulties of being an immigrant, nor was she the type of person who would applaud herself for her achievements. She earned a PhD in a foreign country and became a professor at a university at a time when female professors of color were even more uncommon than they are now, and yet she still would say, “You know, I just did it because I wanted to do it.” When talking about how she accomplished her impressive resume while raising three children, she would say, “You know, I just got three really good kids. All good kids.” Baba’s way of speaking was always so matter of fact when she talked about her life that I never fully grasped how incredible she was until I was much older.

My Baba passed away in April this year. After battling memory loss for several years, her health rapidly declined after she suffered two incidents of head trauma. Since her passing I have felt everything from deep grief to pure joy in the idea that she might be somewhere on the other side with all her precious memories restored, waiting for me to come speak to her in her native tongue once again. I have also spent much of my time reflecting upon how an enormous part of who I have come to be in the past decade of my life is because of her.

My grandmother was born in a small, rural town in southern Japan in 1938 where most of the residents were either farmers or fishermen. While she may have been humble about the accomplishments of her adult life, I remember her always being ready to boast about how in her youth, she was always at the top of her class and was the fastest runner at her school who could “outrun all the boys.” She excelled at most things she did, and her ambitions quickly outgrew her hometown. After finishing high school, she left for Aoyama University in Tokyo, rising high above the social barriers that farm-town girls in 1950s Japan faced. She later transferred to a college in Hawaii where she met my grandfather, a white American man who she married and settled down with.

My grandparents were not a lovey-dovey couple. I witnessed Papa kiss Baba only once in my entire life — on the forehead. Despite their lack of public affection, I can only imagine the kind of love they must have had for each other for them to get married at a time when interracial marriage was still illegal in most states and the anti-Japanese sentiment leftover from World War II was still strong in the United States. I am sure that they faced intense opposition and endured a lot of racism, but Baba never really talked about it with me. It was not until after her passing that I had my first conversation with my grandfather about some of his and Baba’s hardships.

My grandparents adopted three children, all with the same ethnic make-up that their biological children would have had. My mom only occasionally talked to me about the challenges she had growing up as a mixed Asian American girl in a predominantly white community that was often racist and xenophobic. It was not until this year that we began to have deeper discussions about our experiences. In one of these talks my mom told me that whenever she told Baba about the way she was treated, Baba would say, “What are you complaining about? Not everyone gets to be half Japanese.” I imagine that this sort of “brush it off” attitude that she instilled in my mom was probably how Baba endured many of her own hardships as an immigrant.

Fortunately, by the time I was born in the 90s, interracial marriages were legal and people like my parents no longer pushed the bounds of societal norms. I love looking at pictures of my parents when they were young. My mom, a lovely mixed Asian woman with long, dark hair and kind eyes, and my dad, a tall, thin, handsome white man with dark brown hair and a jawline you could cut paper on made for a very good looking couple. They knew their children would be mixed Asian like my mom, but my parents probably expected me to come out looking like Keanu Reeves, whom many people are surprised to learn is one-quarter Chinese. Defying all genetic expectations, I came out looking less like Keanu and more like Jet Li. With thick black hair, naturally darker skin, and narrow eyes, many people have described me as even “more Asian” in appearance than my mom. I stuck out like a painfully obvious mole on a person’s otherwise blank skin in the overwhelmingly white neighborhood where I spent my earlier childhood years. I also stuck out among my siblings and cousins who all did inherit more of a Keanu aesthetic. The contrast is especially stark when I stand next to my younger brother who mostly takes after my dad. We often received comments from people about how different we looked, and some people would even assume that one of us was adopted or that we had different fathers. This constant attention people gave to my appearance made me hyper-aware from an unusually young age that I did not look the same as other kids.

Among my family members, my Baba was the person who I remember bringing up my phenotype most frequently. She would whisper to my mom, “You know, he looks so Japanese. A very good looking boy. All the girls in Japan will love him.” She seemed to glow with pride that I came out looking more like her even though she did not actually make any genetic contributions. From the time I was born until about age 7 I had a prominent blue patch of skin on my butt and lower back commonly known as a Mongolian spot. Baba always treated the Mongolian spot as the mark of a true Asian kid. Whenever I took a bath at her house she would say, “You know, that is right. It means he is really Japanese.” I am unaware of any science that shows the Mongolian spot as exclusively indicative of Japanese blood in any way, but I believed her at the time. The times I spent with Baba were some of the only times in my childhood where I remember feeling proud about the way that I looked.

As I became a teenager, in addition to all the awkwardness, puberty-related body changes, and hormone-driven emotional turmoil that all adolescents must endure, I also dealt with the stereotypes, sense of emasculation, and microaggressions young Asian American boys commonly face. I refrain from delving into the harsh realities of all of those issues here, but I will say that I felt immense internal conflict. On one hand, I was genuinely proud of my Japanese heritage, especially when I was with Baba; on the other hand, I struggled with feelings of shame and confusion over the disconnect between the assumptions people made about my race and the actual amount of Japanese culture I identified with. For the most part, my lived experience was as an American. I had only ever lived in the United States, and my parents’ native language was English. I was always aware of Japanese culture, but I could never really claim that I lived inside it. I felt like I was trapped between two worlds, neither of which I would ever fully belong to. I felt inadequate and desperately needed someone to talk to about it. The issue was not that my parents or friends would not have listened. Rather, I simply did not know how to voice my struggles so I let them fester inside me for years.

After high school, I decided to become a missionary for the church my grandmother joined when she was a college student in Tokyo. I will admit that while some part of me genuinely wanted to participate in religious service at the time, another part of me wanted to go just to have the experience of living in Japan. I wanted to learn my Baba’s native language and culture in order to continue to make her proud. Another part of me also wanted to go there so that I could prove that I was “Asian enough.” When I learned that I was not only going to Japan but that I was assigned to an area that included Baba’s hometown, I will forever remember the moment when Baba would say, “You know, that is right. That is where you are supposed to go!” While sensing her heart swell with pride, I simultaneously felt my own heart start to sag under the weight of my expectations.

The time I spent in Japan as a missionary was unlike any other in my life. Early on, I became aware of the Japanese haafu community. Haafu is the Japanese term borrowed from the English word “half” to identify people who are of mixed Japanese ethnicity. I remember being so surprised by the large proportion of half-Japanese people among the other missionaries at the time, and I felt an instant connection with them. It was in this niche community that I found some of my closest friends and met the beautiful woman who I somehow convinced to marry me a year after returning to the United States. After years of never belonging anywhere, I suddenly found a group of people who I looked like and truly identified with. I rigidly attached myself to my new identity and began to introduce myself as haafu to everyone I met. I wanted to hide that I technically was not “half” Japanese, did not grow up speaking Japanese, and never spent time living in Japan as a child like the majority of haafu I met there did. I wanted so desperately to be able to pass as one of them that I practiced the Japanese language to the point of exhaustion. I worked hard enough to surpass the language abilities of even some of my haafu peers who grew up speaking Japanese. Sacrificing much sleep for study, I put in thousands of hours into making flashcards, reading books, memorizing vocabulary and grammar, and learning characters. I did everything I could to immerse myself in the Japanese language and culture, even refraining from speaking English whenever possible. By the end of my time as a missionary, I was conducting meetings in Japanese and even doing live interpreting in both languages.

When I came back to the United States I thought I had completely changed. I thought that I was much more in touch with my identity and had finally proved to the world that I was Japanese enough. However, the reality was that I was still very much that same kid who, deep down, felt inadequate and uncomfortable in his own skin and thirsted for validation from others. The one thing I do know that I gained from my time in Japan was a greater appreciation for Baba. After coming home, I stopped speaking to her in English and our relationship operated in Japanese from that point forward. I saw a whole new side of my grandmother that was only visible when she spoke in her native tongue. I felt like I had finally done it — I reclaimed my heritage and established a real connection to my Japanese roots through language. I felt like I had made my Baba proud.

A few years later, my mom made a discovery that shocked the entire family. My mom, my brother, and my sister all took commercial DNA tests that revealed that my mom was in fact not half Japanese, but half Chinese. This was unbeknownst to my grandparents at the time of my mother’s adoption. I am not sure if I could not believe it or if I simply did not want to believe it. This DNA test brought my entire identity into question. Sure, I tended to exaggerate the amount of Japanese blood I carried in me, but never had I imagined that I might not actually have any at all. All my efforts suddenly seemed meaningless in the presence of this simple DNA test, now telling me that I have no biological claim to Japan whatsoever. I attempted to conceal my emotions, but I was floored. It immediately brought me back to that same place I was as a kid — confused, ashamed, stuck in limbo between worlds. So, taking the natural and most logical course of action, I lived in denial. I held on to all the possible reasons why commercial DNA tests can be inaccurate and refused to get one of my own, even though I knew that my results would be no different from my siblings’. I went on pretending that I was half Japanese, not one-quarter Chinese.

By this time, Baba’s memory was suffering. I am not sure if my mom’s discovery was something that she ever fully understood. I know that Baba would not have been disappointed in any of us because she always said that she was just grateful to have adopted my mom and have me and my siblings as grandchildren. Regardless, I was disappointed to feel like my connection to her had been tainted.

About a year and a half later, my wife and I had our first child — a beautiful little daughter who stole the hearts of everyone in the family. It is cliché to say that kids change everything, but in my case it was particularly true. If I wanted her to be able to grow up with a better grasp of her mixed identity than I did, I knew I needed to put in the work myself to understand and embrace who I really was instead of simply accepting the assumed identity imposed on me by others. I started by taking my own DNA test. Though I already knew what the results would be, seeing them with my name attached to it gave me a sense of groundedness that I had not experienced in a long time. The next step I had to take was deciding how I was going to address the complex array of muddled identities inside me.

I often thought of my Baba and what she would do. Her greatest strength was that she never let anyone else decide for her who she was. I realized that it was time for me to stop letting other people determine the criteria for what was “Asian enough,” “American enough,” or even “haafu enough.” As a person of mixed race, I alone have the privilege of deciding which parts of me and my heritage I want to embrace. I decided to be honest with myself — I knew I could no longer deny the fact that my biological roots were not in Japan. I could also not deny the fact that I had deeply internalized so much of the Japanese culture that I inherited from Baba, now a culture and language that I share with my wife and speak to my daughter at home. I also knew that I needed to start exploring my new identity as a Chinese American. Both of these parts of me were going to have to find a way to coexist peacefully within if I wanted to truly find myself.

Overcoming years of inner turmoil was not easy. It took days and nights of pondering, resolving, and discussing things deeply with my wife, who helped me more than anyone else in working through my identity issues. I spent countless hours listening to the experiences of other mixed Asian Americans and how they came to terms with their identities. I gradually came to a place where I felt more at peace with myself. My journey is far from over, but at least now I know where I am going. To anyone struggling with their mixed race identity like I did for so many years, I invite you to now take that first step you have been so reluctant to take. I promise it will be worth it. Be like my Baba and stop letting other people dictate who you are.

So here I am. I am mixed Chinese American by blood and mixed Japanese American by culture. My history is far from simple, but I am proud of who I am and am proud to have roots in both China and Japan. I am proud of my family and my daughter. I am proud to be my Baba’s grandson.

I never got the chance to talk to Baba about any of this before she passed away which is maybe one of my greatest regrets. I never got the chance to tell her about my personal journey and how big of a role she played in it. Maybe one day I will. If that day comes, I imagine she would say, “You know, that is right. All my kids come from more than one place, and so do you.”

Charlie Bahr grew up in Tucson, Arizona and now lives in Columbus, Ohio where he is currently studying to be an eye doctor at Ohio State University. When he's not taking tests or doing eye exams, he is likely at home watching Disney movies with his daughter Leia, drinking exorbitant amounts of boba, eating home-cooked Japanese food, or deep in conversation about Asian America with his wife Maika. He loves watching anything set in the Star Wars Universe and is always willing to geek out with anyone over anything hot and new in the realms of science and science fiction.

Follow Charlie on Twitter @happyasianpapa and IG @charlie.bahr.