Growing Up Different

Hapa Mag - February 12, 2020

By Sarah M. Chen

“You look different,” my dad tells me with a laugh.

I had asked my dad what the restaurant manager said to me in Chinese when we shook hands after my dad introduced us. I didn’t really need to ask though. The confused expression on her face told me everything.

I don’t look Chinese. I look different.

My whole life revolved around looking different. Growing up in the ’70s, mixed-race couples, especially Asians and whites, were rare. My mom, a white woman from British Columbia, marrying a Chinese man from Taiwan, was practically unheard of.

In Orange County, California, a very conservative area, it was completely foreign. We lived on a quiet suburban street. There was a Japanese family on one corner. The Mendozas lived on the other corner. When an African American family moved to our street years later, it was the talk of the neighborhood.

But we stood out as a mixed-race family. People would see a white woman with a young girl with dark brown hair and my dad’s eyes. They would stop and ask questions.

“What is she?”

“Where did she come from?”

I had to be adopted, a girl from China that she “saved.” She couldn’t possibly be my biological mother.

If my dad was with us, then it was a different reaction. People would stare, not used to seeing a tall white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes with an Asian man. It defied the stereotype: the white man marrying the submissive Asian woman.

My mother didn’t mind the attention. She’s outgoing, extroverted, and talks to everybody. She would laugh it off and think it was all a hoot. She didn’t understand what it felt like to be different. To not fit in no matter where you went.

It’s not her fault. I don’t blame her. But I think it trivialized my shame and anger when people said such thoughtless things. My mom doesn’t mind, so why should I?

I wanted to look like her. To fit in so badly. My friends were white and most of my classmates were white. There were other Asian students but I didn’t relate to them. Their parents were first-generation immigrants and usually spoke little English. My classmates would speak Vietnamese, Japanese, or Chinese at home. They had strong cultural ties to their heritage.

I knew nothing of my Chinese background. My dad went to college in the U.S. He spoke perfect English and was a U.S. citizen. I always thought of him as American. I didn’t think of myself as coming from a family of immigrants, although that’s exactly what we were. I was born in Canada, in the same city as my mother. My dad was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Taiwan.

We’d go to the local Chinese Baptist Church and my mom would be the only white person. Most kids spoke Chinese and I had nothing in common with them. It was during these moments I wished I was “more Chinese.”

But at school and everywhere else I went, I was desperate to be white. I hated my ears and my eyes. Kids would tease me by stretching their eyes into slits with their fingers and say, “Ching, chong, chang.” I wanted to change my last name so it wasn’t so Chinese sounding. My dad wasn’t around much to teach me about Chinese culture but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I shunned it.

The first time I felt comfortable in my own skin was when I went to Hawaii. I was about 10 or 11. People who looked like me were everywhere. It was incredible and a wonderful feeling. I felt like I finally belonged.

I returned to Hawaii many times over the years and was often mistaken for a local. I almost moved there after college but the idea of living on an island didn’t appeal to me. A friend of mine moved there instead and I visited often.

By the time I was in my late teens and early twenties, I went from “what are you?” to “exotic.” My mom said I was Eurasian but that didn’t seem right since I didn’t feel connected to Europe in any way. Being “exotic” made me attractive to various men which boosted my ego, but of course, it always attracted the wrong kind of men.

Eventually the stigma that came with being “different” morphed into a badge of honor. In college, I wanted to be an individual. What type of individual that was, I was still exploring like most college students. But “different” was now desirable. My friends and I, we wanted to make our mark on the world. It was just a matter of figuring out what that meant.

Perhaps my confidence also had to do with the influx of more immigrants. The changing landscape of cities across the country included more mixed-race couples. I went to UCLA, one of the most diverse campuses in the nation. Living in Los Angeles was a far cry from the conservative whitewashed neighborhood of my childhood.

It was also around this time, in the mid-’90s, that I first heard someone call me “Hapa.” Right away, I felt a connection. It gave me a sense of identity and community for the first time. I researched what “Hapa” was. It used to be limited to those who have Hawaiian roots but then the term expanded to include those with part-Asian ancestry.

As I entered my thirties and forties, it delighted me to see many of my friends in mixed-race relationships and marriages. Their children are half-Chinese like me. Seeing their adorable kids playing with other kids of various backgrounds makes my heart sing. It’s a growing national trend that I find encouraging.

Today, if anyone asks, I say I’m half-Chinese. People usually assume the other half is white as being white is normalized in our society. I don’t mind mixed-race, biracial, or Hapa either. I’m also not as touchy about the occasional “what are you?” I don’t know if it’s due to hearing it all my life and being desensitized or if I’m now more comfortable in my own skin. Probably a little of both.

The day after the awkward meeting with the restaurant manager, I’m browsing in a local market. I want to know exactly what’s in a product I had sampled and the Taiwanese saleswoman assisting me spoke little English.

Eventually I determine it’s a preserved vegetable and after much head-nodding and smiling, I pay for my purchase.

As I leave, she says in halting English.

“You look beautiful.”

I smile, touched. “Sheh sheh.” Thank you.

Her words stay with me the rest of the day. I have finally reached a point where I embrace my racial background as beautiful, but nevertheless, it’s still a lovely thing to hear.