I’m surrounded by conversations, thoughts and topics around what it means to be Asian American in times of a lot of fear, exhaustion, anger, hate, and violence. I find myself wondering what would be my answer if someone were to ask me a question I’ve never fully acknowledged to myself. What does being Asian American mean to me and what are my opinions or reflections of what is going on.
I never fully acknowledged it myself because (and I’ve been lucky) I’ve never had any “harm” or been consciously affected by other’s opinions of Asians. I say consciously, as its never been at the forefront of my mind but I realize that my being “different” has contributed a great deal to my personality and outlooks on life.
So who am I? Am I a Cambodian survivor trying to adjust to American culture? Not really, I was born here and grew up largely outside of Cambodian culture. So am I fully American? I always thought so, but then again, I’ve not had a lot of “American” experiences or interests and often times find myself awkwardly not being able to relate or participate in conversations around favorite national league teams/players/games — take your pick of which sport.
I’m just me, trying to find places where I can feel I belong, a human need of belonging, but stuck between two cultures without really much of a foothold in either.
How I got here
My family survived and escaped the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, aka the Killing Fields. A civil war in a country divided between western ideals and communism that killed nearly 25% of the population. A country that 40 years later is still a shadow of its former self.
They survived one day at a time in a Khmer Rouge farming camp, escaping many close shaves with death. In the confusion of the Vietnamese army moving westward through Cambodia to overthrow the Khmer Rouge, my parents escaped and hid until they could cross and take temporary shelter with the Vietnamese. Temporary until they could risk crossing the border into a Thai Red Cross shelter where they were sponsored as refugees to escape to Unites States in 1980.
Is that an accurate account? I’m not 100% sure, it is not my story to tell accurately, it is my parent’s and my sister’s who was 3 years old at the time they emigrated. But that leaves me, an “anchor baby” born in the US in 1983 to a family uprooted from everything they know struggling to make it in a completely new country, culture, and without much more than the clothes on their back and the education they had to hide to avoid being part of the western “purge” to reset Cambodia back to year zero.
Their story is not my story, but it is a story that affects me as I grew up in yet another Asian household where being guarded, fighting to survive and eek out a living are the norm. A household where there wasn’t a luxury of insight into “which culture” should these kids be raised in. I can’t help but ask myself, did my parents not share much of Cambodian culture with me as a choice? After all its a culture that ended up with a massive death toll from civil war. Or, was there just not enough time with both parents splitting shifts to ensure we had a roof over our heads, food in our mouths, and as many opportunities that they could give us to find our own path in life.
That Asian Kid
Was either of those reasons a driver for why we moved away from the town I was born in. A town with a small community of Cambodian refugees, traded for an even smaller town where the only other Asians kids I saw in school were the two younger kids that weren’t Cambodian and didn’t have Asian parents. (Were they adopted directly from overseas or a result of an even more complicated family situation).
So now I’m not a part of a Cambodian community. Most of my day is spent at school where the most I learn about Cambodia is maybe a paragraph in a 5th grade history book and the small writeup in the World Book encyclopedia. The Khmer Rouge did somewhat succeed in the year zero reset, purging the country of academic materials, ensuring I would never really know the history of Cambodia.
So, what is left to do but try to soak up as many ways as I can to fit in with what’s available in a small town in southern Maine. I spend as much time with my friends and their families as I can all the way through high school to try to learn to fit in as “American” as best I can. I try to find activities with people that look like me and take up stereotypical “Asian” activities. Geeking out on computers, learning martial arts. Ironically I learn a Korean martial art without ever meeting a Korean instructor in the system.
I gravitate more towards the mathematics and sciences topics that transcend borders and cultures rather than history and literature which have a lack of relatable stories for me at the time (and therefore interest). Most Asian depictions for a grade schooler at the time are depictions of China or Japan and usually pop culture stereotypes…not Cambodia or Southeast Asia. Do we even have sterotypes other than loudly yelling on phones like yelling will fix phone lines stretching halfway across the globe back “home”.
It wasn’t bad though, I’ve been lucky, all those friends and families, and “white” communities I’ve spent time with over the years have largely been a welcoming, inviting and supportive experience. I like to think that most of those positive interactions come from working class families who understand just how hard it is to make ends meet. A mutual respect for struggles that transcend the color of skin. Sure there have been plenty of folks that have been “privileged” enough to spend way too much time and drama on superficial minutia, but I tended to avoid those people when I could pretty successfully.
Wait you’re Cambodian
Now we only moved two towns over, so there were still times when we met up with relatives and other Cambodian families in the prior town for special occasions. But it was always just a visit. I never knew what it was like to live in that town, with other Cambodians on a daily basis. Maybe it was for the best and I escaped from a potentially much tougher life (a number of Cambodians of my generation were busted for drug trafficking in the early 2000s although no one I knew personally).
But it also meant I was always “outside” of this culture and community. Add to this that my family is very light skinned for Cambodians and I almost felt I was “too white”. I’ll never forget the day on my way back to college at UMF when I stop to pick up some reminders of home at the Asian food store in Portland. I hear the cashiers talking to each other in Cambodian. As I’m on the way out the door I say thank you in Cambodian only to be met with wide eyes and the bagger speaking loudly in Cambodian…”What the hell, he’s Cambodian!?”
This is ironically reminiscent of my first trip into Wal-Mart in Farmington Maine to get supplies for my freshman dorm room. As soon as I walk into the store I get a slack jawed stare from a kid who I assume has never seen a person of color in his life. In both cases, neither was offensive, more-so amusing and I couldn’t just help but laugh at the situations of people being surprised by situations that upset their perceptions or perspectives.
Just and outsider
So what does it mean to be Asian American to me. From my perspective, its always being an outsider. Definitely too Asian to “blend in” with the Americans, and too light skinned and tall to fit in with the Cambodians. Now this isn’t meant to be a sob story or a have pity on the person of color. I have been privileged with a good education, faced very little racism, and I’d argue I’ve been very successful for anyone my age regardless of color. It’s to paint a picture of my perspectives on my Asian American experience and diversity.
Its also an acknowledgement that I’ve had positive and negative interactions in all of my “communities”. It’s appreciation for how the positives always came from people that were open and tried to find a way to relate to one another. From those that could recognize when others are just trying to do their best to survive life.
A reflection that every interaction I have with people in my day to day life is a mental set of hurdles. Which “me” will I lead with? Is this person one of those open and relatable people or is it someone that already has an opinion or a chip on their shoulder. How much of my back story do I share especially when I’m behind the anonymity of a computer or online video game. Should it matter?
So who am I and what’s my take on issues of diversity?
I am me, a person shaped by interactions, experiences, and a background that I have yet to find is a shared by anyone else in this world. It makes me unique, just as everyone is. And if everyone is unique is anyone really an “insider”. We create labels and group ourselves into the have and have nots as a coping mechanism and crutch to feel “inside” as part of a community.
Most people that know me, seldom see me getting heated in stressful situations, staying calm and collected even when working with “difficult” people. I’ve heard an off the cuff mention of being “Zen”. I shrug off the Asian connotation and acknowledge internally that its not some religion, faith, or state of mental being I’m striving to get to.
Its a reflection and comparison of my circumstances at the time against all my the experiences I’ve had prior. I weigh the seriousness of problems I face against the very real near death situations my family has experienced firsthand to get perspective. I strive to emulate the open and empathetic people that have been positive influences in my life. Its trying to understand that everyone has struggles they’re dealing with and I can chose to try to help alleviate them rather than add to them. Its respect that small differences in life could have led me to those same struggles or worse. Its trusting that people are doing the best they can with the hand they’re dealt.
I try to never compare myself with other people in terms of being better than them or worse than them because of how easily my life could have been very different with myself in their shoes. Instead I try to see them as just different neither in a bad or good way.
Those differences mean that there is always something I can learn from them or some way I can relate to them, so why burn any bridges? As a forever outsider, why remove a path to have something in common with someone? As an outsider diversity is all I know and if I don’t celebrate or embrace it, then that just guarantees I’ll be on the outside looking in.
