“Most mixed-race people associate with one race over the other.” The first time I heard this, my mind jumped to every mixed-race person I knew. Specifically, half-white, half-something-else people. Barack Obama. Henry Golding. Jo Koy. Yes, I suppose I can name ‘one race’ for each person even though they are mixed. Obama is the first … Continue reading What I Need to Say About My Mixed-Race Identity
What “American” Means to Me
I avoided it a lot. I read NPR stories about it. I liked my friend’s tweet about it. But whenever the video appeared of President Trump’s rally chanting, “send her back!”, I leapt off my chair and crawled under the desk until it was over. I’m not an immigrant. Nor am I a child of … Continue reading What “American” Means to Me
My Week of Seoul Searching
Day 1 Two words: sensory overload. Hongdae is a stacked array of Parisian-inspired dessert bars, skin food labs, multilevel arcades, karaoke bars, and cafés boasting fruity lattés topped with marshmallows and whipped cream. There’s a sleek Boba tea spot with a line of people waiting behind a velvet barrier rope. A woman with a headset … Continue reading My Week of Seoul Searching
How to Be an Outsider in Cambodia
“Can you speak Khmer?” The customs officer asks me this with his eyes squinted. It’s 10 p.m. at the Phnom Penh airport and I just got off a six-hour flight. “Can I speak—no, no, I can’t,” I answer him, blinking. “Where were you born?” he asks. Literally, you have my passport in your hand. “USA.” … Continue reading How to Be an Outsider in Cambodia
What the Khmer Kids Taught Me
I know I should be listening but I’m zoning out. Teresa*, the head of A New Day Cambodia, is explaining to my family and I how the school works as we sit cross-legged in their main hall. But my gaze is on the long scroll of paper tacked to the wall and covered with Magic … Continue reading What the Khmer Kids Taught Me
Meeting My Korean Relatives
Let me just say, it was unreal. My mom, dad, brother, and I approach a tall building with an escalator traveling into its middle. We wander to the third floor, quietly, because the corridors are silent. (I don’t know why. This is apparently a mall. The hair salons, micro-gyms, and clothes shops must be sealed … Continue reading Meeting My Korean Relatives
My Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation
“Do you want a bindi?” The girl who asks me blinks with her synthetic rainbow falsies. I’m at a tapas bar in England, shimmying to reggaeton beneath a canopy of upside-down sombreros. “Sure!” I shout back. The girl—a white English girl—untacks a gemstone from her paper and presses it against my forehead. There. A bindi. … Continue reading My Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation
