Luckily, today's post is a real treat! We're hosting freelance writer and YA/MG writer, Caroline Tung Richmond! We hit it off over Twitter and Pinterest (I don't even remember how), and she very graciously agreed to writing a guest post for us in celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
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| Caroline wearing her brother's hat from his traditional outfit. |
Take it away, Caroline!
(All photos courtesy of Caroline)
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I hate to admit it but....
I haven't always been proud of my Chinese heritage.
Growing up, I wanted to be just like my friends, most of whom were white. I wanted long blond hair with freckles to match, like the most popular girls in school. I wanted to eat roast beef for dinner instead of steamed eggs over rice. And I wanted to have a "normal" last name like Jones or Carter instead of Tung, which no one could pronounce the first time around.
I didn't want to be different. I didn't want to be Chinese.
During my junior year in college, however, something inside of me shifted. Maybe it was because I was a little older. Or maybe it was because I felt more comfortable in my skin. Whatever it was, I started dipping my toes in my ethnicity. I signed up for Asian history classes and I took three semesters of Chinese language. After graduation, I was even lucky enough to take a week-long trip to Beijing. I had come a long way from the little girl who wanted blue eyes and a different last name. And yet...
I felt like I was missing the last puzzle piece.
Which was odd to me. After all, I had studied Chinese and I had visited China, where all four of my grandparents had hailed from. What else did I have to do to feel fully connected to my heritage?
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| Xiao Long Bao - soup-filled dumplings |
But after we spent our first full day in Taiwan, something simply clicked in my mind. Maybe it was visiting my grandfather's grave, who died before I was born. Or maybe it was touring my parent's alma mater. Or maybe it was as simple as eating a big bowl of noodle soup and thinking it was so much better than roast beef. Whatever it was---and as cliche as it sounds---I felt like I had come home. That sense of belonging I was searching for as a kid? It was here in Taiwan. This was the place where my parents had grown up. This was the place where my family was buried. And this was the place that had helped define who I was, even though I had never stepped foot in it until now.
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| Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial |
Although I can do without the spiders!
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| No pics of giant spiders, but here is a size-of-my-hand snail! |
You can find Caroline online at:
Blog: Adventures in Space
Twitter: @ctrichmond
Website: Caroline T Richmond
Posts
8 comments:
This is such a lovely post, Caroline.
There were years when I was ashamed of my heritage, too -- but growing up, growing into myself, has made me more and more proud of it each day. :)
So nice to meet you Caroline.
It sounds like all of us growing up in this country had to deal with varying degrees of self-hatred, shame and internalized racism. I feel even more bonded with my fellow yellows because of this pain/confusion.
Emy, it's so good to see you again! How are you?
Like you, I'm so glad that I've grown into a place where I'm really proud of my heritage instead of embarrassed by it. I only wish that I had embraced it sooner! It would've saved me a lot of high school angst. :)
Sophia, it's so nice to meet you as well! I totally agree with what you said about feeling bonded with fellow yellows. (Haha, I'm going to have to use that phrase!)
There's simply a part of me that people can't truly understand unless they're Asians as well. I suppose it's just something you have to experience yourself, like the subtle racism that a lot of people don't notice because we are the "model minority."
Wonderful post!
It sounds like your trip to Taiwan was very influential. Someday I want to visit China, where I was born--I don't remember the country at all, but I think it would be an interesting experience.
Lovely post!
I remember seeing the home where my mother grew up in the Netherlands. It's very grounding. Sometimes, I think that children of immigrants often feel kind of rootless. We grow up with cultural expectations that none of our peers experience. We grow up feeling the pressure of being successful so our parents' sacrifice was worthwhile.
Being the child of immigrants is a gift too. We can see beyond culture in ways that people who are part of their "home" culture never experience. As a writer, I really value that.
Yay, Taiwan! :D So glad to hear you enjoyed your trip. I can relate to wanting to be white when I was younger, since most of my favorite heroines in the books I read were white, and I felt like I couldn't be as cool as they were as an Asian. But now I'm living in Taiwan and actually liking it a lot, haha. :)
Agreed with everyone else, this was a lovely post! It's nice to meet so many wonderful Asian-American writers with the same experiences as me! I grew up in the whitest state in the nation, but I was lucky to always feel accepted and never to lose appreciation for my culture. (Thanks, tiger mom and dad.) But still there was always that sense of wanting to connect more and belong more to where I'd come from. Your Taiwan trip must have been amazing!
I hope to go to Taiwan someday with my hubbie's family, who are Taiwanese. Those soupy dumplings are my favorite! I'm drooling now, thanks!
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