For those of you who frequent my site, you probably already know that my Asian-American identity has defined a lot of my life. Only in the past year have I been examining this aspect more and more, considering I am constantly reminded at school and now in my company of who I am, what I am.
Today I was writing a post over at TAOpivot talking about international students not having enough American friends. As always, I add pictures to my posts to give a little visual; yet, I found myself looking through all my photos from over the years, trying to find photos that didn’t include me with foreign nationals.
I exclaimed out loud to my intern and my colleague, “I can’t use pictures of myself with my international friends, because I don’t look American enough!” They nodded and agreed with my statement.
And that’s how it stands.
This doesn’t discourage me from continuing on with my company; I feel that, as an Asian-American consulting with foreign nationals (mostly from Asia), they may find me more relatable to them and their situations than one of my caucasian counterparts.
It can go both ways, though: as I had written about my conversation partners, they could also think what I exclaimed today: that I’m just “not American enough.”