The Whitest of the Non-Whites

If you haven't realized by now that I'm not Caucasian, then look at the nice pictures to the left - I am the non-blonde one. But I rarely define myself, or even relate myself, as the 'Asian' or 'Chinese' that I look like - I identify more with Caucasians - after all, I grew up with a majority of them and that's also the majority of my 'crew.'

I am an American, however. I was born and bred in New Jersey. While growing up in New Jersey, I played the piano (very Chinese), played tennis (very Chinese), went to Chinese School (that my Dad helped establish) to learn the language, and I was an active participant in my youth group for church (a Chinese church). My parents brought us to Chinatown and we celebrated Chinese New Year when I was small - I only continued the tradition when I was older to get my red envelope of MULA! That might seem like a lot of Chinese stuff growing up but compared to growing up in an actual Chinese community, I don't think it is. I'll admit that my 'crew' in junior high and high school consisted of a lot of Chinese people but that quickly changed when I went to college.

College made me become a little more white-washed. I chose to attend college at Purdue University, in Indiana. NOT a lot of ABCs (American Born Chinese) there. I only dated Caucasians (kinda hard not to when you're in Indiana) and I ended up marrying a white dude that is known as 'Pale Force.' The four years that I spent in Indiana certainly stretched me further away from my Chinese heritage - probably because I didn't have many people to share it with during college. I couldn't quite relate to the Chinese students on campus because more often than not, they were what we ABCs like to call, 'FOBs' (Fresh off the Boat).

After leaving Indiana, I promptly returned to New Jersey, worked a little bit in NYC before settling down with a job in the Jersey 'burbs...in IT (How CHINESE!). I worked with a good mix of Chinese, Koreans and Indians. And you know what - I was the only American-born one in the group. So that made me feel like an outcast among them. When we moved down to Virginia, my husband and I started hanging out with a bunch of Purdue alums - rarely was there another Asian in the group. For my softball jersey, I almost went by the nickname 'Token.' But then another Asian guy started hanging with the group and I felt like the nickname couldn't be carried out - it wouldn't make sense.

I often find that when I'm hanging out with my friends now, I rarely know that there's a difference between us - that I have immigrant parents or that I know another language because I grew up speaking it. Of course I use the Chinese to my advantage when ordering food or listening to other people's conversations -but really, there are no other opportunities to set me apart from everyone else (not that I'm looking). But the good thing about it all is I'm comfortable in my own skin. So comfortable that when someone makes a stereotypical remark about Asians or Chinese, I usually laugh it off because I don't think of myself in that way.

The same goes for another one of my girlfriends - we'll call her K. She grew up in Atlanta and she's Afro-American. But she doesn't think of herself as a black girl - she hangs with all of us and she's into nerdy white guys. On the surface, we're definitely the two minority girls in the group - the Chinese and the Black girl - but if you knew our group, you'd know there's no difference.

We're the whitest non-white people you'll ever meet!