Every time I drive 50 miles back home I’m reminded of how different my lifestyle is away from it, and how different my parents’ lifestyle must be 7,000 miles away from theirs. It seems like every degree of removal from the so-called ‘homeland’ (China) creates more distance between me and the culture I’m supposed to identify and belong to. 

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Growing up in a majority white community with no relatives around, my only lifeline to the traditions, customs, etc of Chinese culture were through the lens of my parents. It often occurs to me what would happen to my connection to it if that lifeline suddenly snapped. 

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How far would I drift away, and would I even care enough to attempt to swim back?

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While I have my own perception of the strength of my cultural identity, depending on who I’m around, some might find it either more concentrated or more diluted. This is interesting to me because my experiences and knowledge with it does not change, rather, what changes is my experience relative to others’ with it. 

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My international friends or even just those who grew up surrounded by more Asians/Asian Americans view me as whitewashed while other friends see my Asianness as an innate characteristic of who I am. Some friends may even just acknowledge my Asianness purely as a matter of physical appearance but have never really given a thought to how that racial or cultural identity manifests elsewhere. 

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All of these litmus tests of how ‘Asian’ I am naturally leads me to what seems like a contradiction between race, culture, and identity. We know that while race is a social construct, it unequivocally has very real consequences and manifestations. But how could this identity marker that I factually check off in a box be viewed in so many different shades to different people? How can something singular be performed and perceived in so many ways?

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I’m not sure how I perform my culture, and in all honesty, what exactly that even means outside of dumb stereotypes. One lead I could possibly find some insight through is a Facebook group that I’ve been a part of since high school called ‘Subtle Asian Traits.’ The majority of the members are similar to myself in the regard that their parents are first generation immigrants from an Asian country and have grown up at the confluence of two different cultures. Many of the posts consist of funny stories, memes, and news that all somehow are marked as characteristically second generation experiences. 

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There’s also the self-constructed stereotype of the ‘ABGs’ or ‘ABBs’ which stand for ‘asian baby girl’ and ‘asian baby boy,’ who are Asians that have grown up in Western countries that share similar characteristics. Some of these include having eyelash extensions, bleached hair, wearing tight clothing, frequenting raves, being addicted to juuling, and religiously drinking boba tea. 

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The ABG is a symbol of the tension between assimilating to Western culture while also rejecting the external stereotypes that are present in it– false eyelashes give off the appearance of the doe eyes and seem to conform to Western beauty standards but purposefully loud and unapologetic personality styles rebel against the weak, subservient ‘lotus blossom’ tropes. 

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I guess being an ABG is the most tangent idea that I can fathom meaning ‘acting Asian’ or more specifically ‘acting Asian American.’ But what about the people, including myself, who don’t identify with this stereotype? We’re neither Asian nor American nor do we meet the image of Asian American defined within its own group. How is it that there is one standard measurement of ‘Asianness’ being applied to a very large and diverse group in and of itself?

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When the increments on the ruler are relative to each person who’s measuring, then a precise or correct measurement simply does not exist. My cultural identity isn’t a point system that fluctuates in validity based on an arbitrary amount of ‘Asian’ behaviors, habits, or actions I exercise. It intrinsically holds value as long as I feel a connection to it.