|
newer-older-profile-gbook-notes- e-mail-dland Power and Passports 07.31.02 at 11:30 pm 0 comments so far -What�s your ethnicity? -My dad�s white. -No, I mean, what�s your ethnicity? -Well, my dad�s French, German, English, you know, an everyday Euromutt. -No, no, your ethnicity, your race! -No, really, my dad�s white�I know I don�t look it, but it�s true. -No, what makes you not white? You do. I am �not-white� by default. Your whiteness renders me, by proxy, not white. Of the same, I am not gendered incorrectly by default. By default I am not even gendered. Your appropriate gender renders me, by proxy, wrong. Your femininity, your masculinity renders me not one and of both man and woman. If one is not part of a situation and, therefore, not the center of attention then they are, by default, the center. Take, for example, a struggle between Black and White. Blacks struggling for racial equality must be the center of attention�they are the interest group in the social movement. Blacks as the center of attention render Whites on the perimeter of the focal point. However, since Whites have the power and are, simultaneously, those in need of change they must be at the center of any progress. I have always given my mother�s race, and not my father�s void. I always give the right answer because I wasn�t meant for fighting. But I also wasn�t meant for appropriation�none of us were� I wasn�t meant for the struggle. By color, however, I was always expected to take part. I never wanted to. And I never had to, until now. I never thought about race. When I began to I had my friends; my white friends and those like me to stand up for the fight. I watched in amused contempt as they aspired to break down senseless racist logic. Then I left. Having gained a sense of awareness, and left with no troops to fight for me, I had to stand up and step up. I never thought about my skin short of picking scabs from it, and hiding its bruises. Then I fell in love with a half-breed like myself. We joined forces with another mutt and counted all the potential members we knew. At three active members we called ourselves a gang until someone told us we needed at least four to be a gang. We said fuck you and disbanded. I do not know where I come from; I don�t know what my narratives should be. I know only who I am in relation to others. My race is a consequence of yours. It is relative to those like me. With each gain and loss of those �like me� in my life I forget and learn how I am presumed to be. When I lack reflections of myself I become just like you and a polar opposite; we are of the same; I am just like you; I am different; I stand outside. I was born in Singapore. Not blessed with a relaxed government in Singapore and dual citizenship, my father applied for my United States membership when I was three weeks old and I was accepted. My memberships have always been decided. My identity has always been questioned. I grew up speaking Mandarin and English. My parents would fight in Chinese. At the onset of puberty my parents divorced and my mother ceased to communicate in Chinese with me. My brother will not learn�Chinese is for fighting. Ask a White person about multiculturalism and they�ll tell you about race. Ask me and I�ll tell you about gender, race and the lines between and within. Ask me for a scholarship application and I�ll tell you exactly what you expect and want to hear: Until recently, I had not understood cultural differences from a theoretical perspective. Instead, I recognized cultural differences through my own experiences as a queer woman of color. My innate understanding of cultural differences left me unable to integrate all parts of my identity in certain spaces. For example, being half Asian and half Caucasian, it is often difficult to integrate my Asian identity when in the company of only white peers. In virtually all spaces, my queer identity is not integrated or even understood. This lack of belonging has, in the past, left me silent and unable to communicate. However, I am privileged to have such a complex cultural background. It has allowed me to understand and connect with people of diverse cultural backgrounds because I am able to engage on many levels. From a theoretical perspective, I have acquired the necessary tools to understand cultural differences from a more sociological and active perspective. This has afforded me the ability to recognize different kinds of silence. This is to say that while silence is often a disabling occurrence, it can also be an empowering choice. From this I have gained the ability to use silence to my advantage. More importantly, I have learned the power of words in communicating beyond cultural differences. Alas, I am not a queer woman of color. I am not a queer woman. I am not a woman of color. My silence is my weakness, my voice shakes and my heart is weak. I was not meant for the struggle. It�s not my race that makes me dangerous. It�s not even my gender that renders me a threat. It is my body as a cultural melting pot: the crossings between boy and girl, and the passports of white and not. Do you burn me with your eyes because I am not white like you? Better yet, do you see to my core and, with one glance, transfigure my identity into something vile? I hold a great deal of power and weakness because of my versatility. I pass in many groups as a boy, a lesbian, Hapa, a woman, punk, hip hop, Asian, transgendered, queer, a faggot, any race you want me to be, Mexican, Indian in every sense of the word. I am whatever you want me to be. I am everything you make me to be. I hold the power and you take it away. Since the divorce I have realized the power my white father holds: money and a reputation of color that goes back for generations. My mother went crazy in this country and my father used that against her. With nearly one hundred thousand dollars and thousand dollar payments every month until I turned nineteen my father bought my brother and me from my mother. I made my mother sick. �Why would you want to be like that? You�ll never have a normal life; you�ll never have grandchildren.� �Why do you dress like that? Do you think it�s some kind of game? Don�t let some big lesbian pull you down.� �That�s a gay movie. Don�t watch it.� �When are you going to have long hair?� I didn�t even guilt her into unconditional love�she realized that there is little binding me to her; she realized she lost me when she sold me away. What she does not realize is that I need to know who she is. She stopped being my mother a long time ago. Only recently has she transitioned into being a friend. She will always be my family. My father was working on an oil rig in Singapore. Everyone asks, �What was he doing over there?� But no one asks why my non-white mother is in the United States�as if she wants to be here where there is nothing but the impossible American dream. I dream, as an American, that my world will be brown. It will be brown not because you will no longer be here, but because your children will be like me�mixed and of both and not of either world simultaneously. It�s just a dream.
|