To my birth family,

Not long ago I had an almost quarter-life identity crisis. You could describe it as me having a moment when I questioned everything: my ethnicity, my upbringing, my nationality, my heritage. In that moment I had no idea who I was. My mantra for remembering myself had no effect in calming the raging question burning in my mind:

Who am I?

It came down to a photo of me with some of my friends from Rena Hill. I’m actually looking at it right now as I’m writing this letter. Even now after my crisis has calmed down I still realize that I’m so different from the rest of my friends.

I’m not CBC, an immigrant with Chinese immigrant parents, nor an international or exchange student. I’m a whitewashed kid who thinks and acts like a white person who has a Chinese face. And yet, I was searching for a culture I never knew, like I wasn’t whole without it.

I wondered what that meant about me, as people say that once you know where you came from you know who you are. But what if that’s not the case?

There will always be things I won’t know, will never know, so if that’s the case how could I ever become “whole”?

And that’s the part that scared me.

Think about it: the CBCs have their little groups because they share experiences. Most have grown up among other CBCs so they can talk about parental issues and studying. They can take comfort in knowing that familiarity and similarity is at arm’s length away, and they can be completely open about it without it getting awkward.

Immigrants usually come here with their families, and so even though I’m also technically a first generation immigrant I don’t have a family with whom I’m sharing the experience with. I wasn’t even a year old when I came to Canada, so I remember nothing about my birth country nor the people there. It’s not like I have a parent or grandparent who will reminisce about the old days, someone who’ll say, “Back in China. . .”

International and exchange students might feel a bit isolated in a foreign country, but today there are so many students in the same boat that they can just make their own groups. I can’t tell you how hard it is to muster the courage to talk to them in the cafeterias. It feels like they’re an exclusive group by just speaking in their local dialects.

Since coming to Ribeiro I never met any other adoptees, so I don’t have a group with whom I can reminisce about shared experiences. So understandably, I have more in common with my white friends than I do with my Chinese friends.

I’ve had the experience of watching everything in English because it’s the only one my family really understands. Yes, my parents are of European descent, but like many of my friends I don’t have a strong connection with those roots, so we just focus on developing our own in the country where we live in the present.

My life is one where mainstream North American culture holds dominant. Getting my driver’s license, working part-time over the summer to save for school, trying to be as accepting as possible so I don’t get accused of being racist, sexist, agist, etc. I experience all that stuff as part of the caucasian population.

It’s hard putting the “white experience” into words, since it’s so generalizing it makes me dizzy. If I didn’t have my Chinese appearance I would just be another white person. But I do, so I can’t be a “white person.”

When I got to university people saw me as Chinese, but once they got to know me they learned I was basically a banana, so I was treated as a white person (sorta). I get white people jokes and can make them because my experiences line up with white people’s. My friends seldom bring attention to my Chinese appearance, so most of the time I’m able to forget that I’m different (sorta).

But when the topic shifts to discussions with my Chinese friends I realize that I have a foot in that group as well. I am among one of many Chinese people growing up in Canada. My birthplace was China, my face is Chinese, and somewhere out in the world I have a Chinese family. I’ve done my research, watched (subtitled) asian dramas, read (translated) asian comics and novels, and understand the tropes. I can participate in conversations about asian pop culture from a North American Chinese experience (sorta).

Evidently, the mismatch between my appearance and my experience is hard to swallow. My face and my life doesn’t correspond. This confuses not only me, but for people who meet me. Yes, it’s a nice ice breaker, but it automatically marks me out as different.

While being unique is cool, it separates me from everyone else. 

Thus came to light the rift between who I was born as, who I grew up as, and who I should be in the future.

And I don’t know if I’ll be able to fix it.

Sincerely,

Lillian