By Naomi K Lu
I
don’t know when the lie became embedded in me. It was mysterious. Subtle. A quiet shadow lingering on the edges of my life. I can’t tell you of the first time I dreamed of having blonde hair and blue eyes. Or why all my barbies had European last names. Or how many times I desperately emphasized to anyone who would listen that I was 75 percent Chinese, but 100 percent American! I was too young to even begin to understand that I was Taiwanese too, not to mention fractions and percentages.
I do remember the shame. I was raised overseas, an American expat in a country filled with individuals who looked just like me. Somewhere, somehow, the lie still landed. No one ever explicitly said it to me, but at some point it ingrained itself into my soul:
It would be better if you were white.
I didn’t realize until adulthood the fullness of the deceit that was being written into my heart. It was the idea that there was something inherently wrong with me. Something ugly about my body and my two letter last name. I’ve wracked my brain, trying to decipher how or when I learned that being Asian was wrong, and I still can’t figure out where it started. All I know is that I was young, alone, desperate to belong and be understood. My young brain tried to understand why I was so unworthy.
The lie was never the fault of one person or one community that spoke into my life; instead, it represented the voices of white supremacy and racism that somehow crossed continents and landed in my soul: to be Asian is to be less than. Even more specifically, there was something wrong with being Chinese. It was commonplace. Ordinary. I looked for anything that could save me and set me apart.
As children, we rarely have the words to describe what pains us. We can only examine the symptoms in order to find the original cause. As I look back, I ache to see the child who found herself ugly, unwanted, and undesirable. And I grieve that in my struggles, there was silence. Not only because I lacked a voice, but also because there were no ears to hear what I had to say. No one noticed. I navigated the world alone, trying to make sense of my distorted view, and fix all that I viewed as broken.
I began to morph in high school. I was tired of being the nerd with thick glasses who was good at math, and I was tired of existing as a quintessential Asian stereotype. I knew I was more than a caricature, but I believed the only way to prove this was to shed my Asian identity. How could I possibly erase what was written into my DNA?
But I tried. I forced myself to be bold. To embrace anything that made me look slightly more ethnically ambiguous. And as I assimilated (erased) all that made me Chinese, trying to appease the American population that was the audience to my makeover, the person I was created to be disappeared.
By the time I reached adulthood, I had no idea who I was. Many factors contributed to a decline in my mental health, but the loss of identity was a key player. I felt that I existed as a series of masks, appearing as others wanted me to, but without any sense of who I actually was. I waded through a depressive fog, wondering if there was any hope to feel at peace in the body that felt so foreign to me.
When the pandemic began, I, like many Americans, was stuck in isolation with only my parents. I was afraid. Though my racial identity had been a source of conflict for me for many years, this was the first time I felt the fear and disdain of others who saw my Asian face. So there I sat, locked away, with nothing else to do but think. I finally faced my ghosts, exhausted from running. Something in me cracked. There was nowhere to hide. The world had explicitly named me for what I was: Chinese. In the raw exposure I felt as I finally faced the identity I had tried to evade for so long, I was shocked to find peace and an invitation to bless the part of me I had longed to erase. God met me in my isolation, and showed me that all of me, including my ethnicity, was made in His image. He blessed the parts of me I had cursed. Slowly, my lost identity began to return.
Until this point, I had typically avoided most forms of Asian media. I never wanted to be compared to an anime character, and I was already painfully aware that my body was not that of a stereotypical petite Asian female. However, I was looking for more ways to exercise, and I stumbled across some K-pop YouTube videos. I have always loved coordinated dances, and with not much else to do, I began dancing along in my kitchen, late into the night, my joy growing with every step. I found laughter in Asian dramas and connection in Facebook groups that celebrated our rich and storied heritage. For the first time, I felt at home in the being that I occupied. I watched with pride as representation poured out onto the silver screen. Every time I see my face reflected back to me, I become surprisingly emotional, and I weep as my chest fills with pride for my people.
Is that not what it means to reclaim? To take back what is rightfully ours. For me, that was to find my inherent dignity as a Chinese woman, and to display her in her full glory to the world. My hair is black again. I no longer try to hide behind ambiguity. I speak my language loudly and proudly, especially when I’m talking to my mom. I find joy in sharing my food and my culture with those around me, and I am delighted to find that there is such fullness in living as the person I was made to be. It should come as no surprise, but my mental health drastically improved as I accepted and embraced my racial identity. I am able to hold myself with love in a way I never before thought possible. I never cease to be amazed at how God uses all things for our good and His glory. A pandemic filled with hatred, he used to reclaim my joy. Truly, nothing is ever lost in Jesus. He makes all things new.
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well.” Ps 139:14 NIV
Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash
Naomi K. Lu is a Chinese-American Third Culture Kid who grew up in East Asia. An educator and a writer, she is passionate about Asian mental health, depression treatment, and suicide prevention. She currently lives in California with her three dogs. Follow Naomi on Instagram @nkluwrites.
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