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Too Much Emma Park
TOO MUCH
By Emma Park
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I met this guy the other day. After talking with him for an hour, he looked at me and said, “You’re a lot more American than I thought you were.”
I was offended for conflicting reasons. At first, I denied being more “American.” What about me struck him as so particularly American? Was I less sophisticated than he was expecting? Did I not seem culturally in-tune? Is it because I’m not fluent in Korean, or because I said I watch “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”? Was he implying some sort of cultural loss on my part? Then, I wondered why he had expected me to be less American than I actually was. I felt indignant. Did he think I was a FOB, or something? Was my first impression super-Asian somehow? Was it the way I dressed or the way I spoke?
Between being too Asian or too American,
I’m not sure which one I’d choose.
I’ve always been indecisive about what my Asian Americanness means to me. I assumed that the two halves of my identity had to be proportional, at least outwardly. I couldn’t be too Asian, but I couldn’t be too American either.
I floated in the ambiguous center, perched in the precarious grey area labeled, “Asian, but not from Asia.”
Asian, but just enough to be socially acceptable.
I have written plenty of pieces about being Asian American since I was in middle school—blog posts, college essays, research papers—but I’m realizing that I focused mainly on how others perceive my identity, not how I perceive it. I wrote about race, about otherness, about the seemingly universal Asian American experience of being asked “Where are you from?” So when threatened with the choice of being called a FOB or a “banana,” I was at a loss. Why is it so hard to stay in the middle of them? Ultimately, I feel like I shouldn’t have to worry about that. I am Asian American, which isn’t simply about the amount of cultural experiences I’ve had or the languages I speak, or where I live. And since I am unquestionably Asian American, what that personally means to me should be solely defined by the way I live my life.
