By Katie Nguyen
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rowing up, the concept of both my little sister and I being Mixed wasn’t entirely foreign to our peers: It was understanding what to do with us or what group or box to categorize us under.
I grew up in one of the most racially diverse cities in our country as a Mixed Vietnamese/White kid. Diversity wasn’t a rarity to me; it was a given. It was also something I took for granted until I moved to Austin, TX, for undergrad and began noticing myself getting excited anytime I saw any Asian out in public, much less any other person of color. As opposed to the context of my high school in Katy, TX, where the term “Wasian” was a generally understood term meaning someone who is White/Asian. However, even that term had its limits.
One of my friends who was also Asian once jokingly called me “Chicken Noodle” as a term of endearment and as a way of indicating that I was half Asian (noodle soup), but also White (chicken). I remember appreciating that she–an Asian–was acknowledging that I am also Asian. In some way, it felt validating, but at the same time, it also didn’t feel quite right. Why couldn’t I be pho? It felt like there was an inherent limit being placed on how much I was allowed to “fit” into the Asian category, rather than simply be my whole, Mixed White and Asian self at all times.
This feeling wasn’t something that was limited to this one interaction. Regardless of how diverse (or not) my context has been, I often find myself in scenarios of people attempting to fit me into their own pre-determined, insufficient boxes for understanding who or “what” I am, and ultimately not knowing what to do with me.
In High School, I had a strong understanding of my own ability to fit into essentially any group of people. I hadn’t yet come across the term “code-switching,” but I had a lot of practice with it in my 4,000-student high school. I used to describe it as my ability to walk into any room and immediately understand which “streams” flowed into each other from one person to another, people’s relationships with each other, and how best to insert myself into and navigate in between all of them.
I’m positive that this instinct/gift was partially forged out of survival instincts I developed from a young age throughout my mom’s divorce from my biological father. My parents divorced when I was four years old, and from that point on I found myself navigating what felt like, for a number of reasons beyond simply cultural differences, two different worlds. However, looking back, I’m also positive that my Mixed identity informed this as well.
I don’t speak Vietnamese, and I was raised primarily by my White parent. I don’t look like what is the stereotypical understanding of “Asian,” and I grew up separated from the majority of the Asian part of my family for the majority of my life. I never quite “fit” with the Asian kids–not even the group of “Nguyens” I went through both Junior High and High School with. We all knew each other, had homeroom together for testing days and sat next to each other at graduation, but I never connected fully with that group.
Later on in my college years, I even started delving into conversations that breached the concept that I “didn’t count” as Asian because I’m not the right kind of Asian: I’m Southeast Asian. Not East Asian. And I’m only half.
The more I’ve continued to delve into not just what it means to be Asian or White, but what it means to be Asian and White, the more I’ve been able to understand truly how deep the love and intention of the Father’s love is for me all the way down to my ethnic makeup. Something I’ve learned as I’ve continued down this journey of understanding what it means to be a Mixed, fully embodied image bearer of the Lord is that my nuance and complications aren’t a burden: they’re a gift.
It was when 2020 happened that I later had the wake-up call that if I don’t show the world how to interact with me as a Mixed, Vietnamese/White, 2nd generation woman, then how can I expect the world to know how to interact with me? Particularly in our American context today of either, Black, White, or foreign. This is why not only conversations around the AAPI experience are so important, but specifically the Mixed AAPI experience.
To my Mixed brothers and sisters: we have been given a gift, and at the same time given as a gift to our society which prefers the easy, the comfortable, the Black or White, the either/or boxes. We are the gift.
As my dear friend Chandra Crane expands on in her book, Mixed Blessing, it may not always feel like it. Sometimes our beautiful, complicated, nuanced Mixed identities may feel more like a burden than the sorely needed gift to the world that it is.
To my monoethnic siblings, particularly those who find yourselves as part of the majority culture: instead of trying to force us into a reductively singular box that fits your own understanding, I encourage and implore you to lean into the discomfort and learn with us and from us.
To my Mixed AAPI siblings specifically: You are Asian. You are enough. You are exactly who God made you to be in your entire, whole, Mixed being. God created every aspect of you in your Mixed identity to uniquely bear a specific aspect of who he is in a way that our monoethnic siblings can’t. Our Savior himself is Mixed. He has Canaanite and Jewish ancestry. He isn’t half and half. He is fully God and fully human.
Not only is the fullness of your Mixed being and presence and voice necessary as the Church as one Body continues to strive together toward unity and justice and mercy in our world, but remember this: our Savior already did the work of ultimate restoration and reconciliation at Calvary. I invite you to consider what it is to further explore the depths of the beauty and grace of the Mixed identity the Lord created you with. Not only as a way of bearing his image to the world, but also in gaining a deeper understanding of who he is through simply sitting with him in the fullness of who he created you to be.
Remember, you are whole. You are enough. Take heart.
Photo by Min An
Katie is a Mixed Vietnamese/White pastor, writer, and speaker in Austin, TX. She serves as the Marketing/Communications Coordinator, an Editor, & is on the podcast team for AACC. She completed her M.A. in Christian Leadership at Dallas Theological Seminary and earned her B.A. in English with teacher certification from Texas State University. She is engaged in the work to care for the historically unseen and marginalized in the city of Austin, consumes books like they’re chips, can often be found by the nearest body of water, and loves a good cup of coffee and conversation!