The Race Issue: Shanghai Edition

It seems like every day, we're confronted with the issue of Race. If I wear my sociologist's hat, I would tell you that Race is a social construct -- it only exists because we have created it. It's intriguing that, although racial differences have very little biological underpinnings, they confront us as an opaque and objective reality. Before I digress into my fascination with the study of social interaction, let me relate this back to my blog.

I proudly consider myself to be a hapa: half-Chinese, half-Caucasian. However, no matter what I do, almost everyone that I meet tucks me away in their mental files under the "white" category. Nothing I do seems to change this phenomenon. I study Mandarin; I am spending two consecutive summers living in China; I have grown up closely with my Chinese relatives; I have thrown myself headfirst into the Asian cultural groups' scene at Harvard... but none of that makes a difference.

Over the past year, I learned more and more about race and how it effects us. As the President of Harvard's Half-Asian People's Association, I was specifically interested in issues of mixed-race issues, which is inextricably entangled with racial identity. Although I've spent countless hours over the past two years helping to prepare for HAPA's "So... What Are You, Anyway?" Conference, I thought I was immune to mixed-race "ISSUES." Yes, I acknowledged that other people may feel some sort of identity crisis, but not me! With my stable, loving family... my comfortable upbringing... my future with limitless opportunities... how could such a thing ever touch me?

Well, living here in Shanghai seems to have done it.

I'm not sure what exactly was the final straw. Maybe it was being told for the billionth time that I "just don't look Chinese AT ALL!" with a look of incredulity that the person doesn't even so much as attempt to hide. Maybe it was another ex-pat who was surprised that I spoke Mandarin and after I explained I was half Chinese, thought I was lying to him! Maybe it is going about my business surrounded by Chinese people, and being painfully aware that they think I'm just another white American girl.

I remember feeling upset after finding out that Obama checked the "black" box and ignored the others when filling out his census form, even though he is multiracial. Yesterday, though, without thinking I called myself white. Now I realize why Obama and so many other multiracial individuals pick one race. Maybe they can't even help it. Call my cynical, but it seems that the cold, hard truth is that people are going to categorize you based on what you look like. They aren't going to ask about your family or give you a chance to self-identify. Instead, if you look white... you're white. If not, well then... you're not.

An Asian girl once told me that I should be thankful I don't look Chinese, because this way I don't get discriminated against. While it may be true that white privilege may be an advantage that comes with being perceived as white, it doesn't erase the sting of feeling like such an outsider in a racial group or a place that you feel you belong to. My family came to America from Shanghai, but for the most part, I am denied this connection with the city. Instead, I am left to feel self-conscious of how I appear to others, and left with the choice of dejectedly accepting their categorization of me, or exhausting myself trying to assert my Chinese-ness and most times still come up short.


**Note: after writing this I pulled myself together and met a few of my classmates for dinner. When one of them made a comment about me being Chinese, one of the girls exhibited the typical combination of incredulity and the need to express this to me. It was all I could do not to chew her out, and I'm proud to say even my curtness was curtailed (for the most part).