In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

31 Who Am I? Gordon Wang I am a neuroscience graduate student at UC Berkeley. My name is Gordon Wang. I am Chinese in origin and American in national af‹liation. Do you know me now? Can you say, “Ah, Gordon. I know him well.” Not likely. We all realize that the identity of a person is much more than anything that can be named, categorized, and abstracted. Yet we all have the intuition that one’s ancestry, one’s profession, and one’s af‹liations matter. Is this just a mere delusion, or is there any truth in it? The answer is yes, there is some truth to it, and if you think that is an ambiguous yes, you are right. Secluded in the Asian conclave that is California, I cannot claim to have a proper perspective on race relations in the rest of the United States, where Asians might not be a common sight, and Asian minimalls do not dot the landscape like Starbucks. Here in California, in the Bay Area, at the University of California, I do not feel particularly out of place. My identity has no special connotations other than the quirks and talents of my Self. True, I might have lived an isolated and protected existence, or perhaps I am just blind, but the tales of prejudice have not occurred to me. That is not to say that I do not believe in these tales, but they are not personal; they are not immediate. They are, to me, make-believe warnings, boogie men, and poltergeists . They are laced with hyperbole, construed to manipulate behavior. All that said, there are times when I feel culturally isolated. In all ways I am a chimera, a mix-and-match identity that is neither American nor Chinese , but this dualism or contradiction makes me a bystander, a person with no true convictions against or for any racial issues. I have my moral opinions, but I can never take sides, because I understand, and my understanding traps me. My empathy binds me. This does not mean I am neutral. I am not, but my knowledge makes me fairer and in the end less convincing. For instance, I am deeply disturbed by the pop-cultural chicness of Asian culture. Asian culture is not a fad or a fetish. Asian chic disturbs through its blatant characterization of difference, the coolness almost bordering on kitsch, the novelty of the exotic. Yet it does signal a sort of acceptance. Is it a start or a false start? And how am I to presume? The irony of my predicament is that I ‹nd the Asian discourse that is spread among the youth and sprinkled into the media to be too Western. When we talk of an Asian America, we are dealing with an intrinsic dualism. Western dualism is dialectical, which means that there are two poles: good/bad, black/white. It lends itself wonderfully to poetry and rhetoric. It is passionate and beautiful, but it is horrible for trying to understand the reality of the human condition. Asian dualism is based on mutuality. Think yin and yang. The symbol swirls around itself. Yin is within the heart of yang, and vice versa. The key difference between the two philosophies is that in Western ideology a mixing of the two poles is a weakening of both. Thus, black and white form grays. In Eastern philosophy, mixing the two poles is the key to life, to understanding and knowledge. It is not seen as weakness that white should contain black, and just like the yin and yang sign, they do not have to mix. There are no grays, their constituents are still pure, but they are more complete because of each other. Asian discourse focuses too much on them and us. It tries to split the Asian American apart into the Asian and the American, and for a person who embraces both they are seen as gray. Diluted. I am not a gray boy. I lived almost half of my life in China. I know what it is to be Chinese, but I am more than just that. I am also American. My American identity does not make me less Chinese. Truthfully my identity has made me sort of an outsider to both worlds, and this perspective has made me realize one thing: It is not about races or cultures. It is and has always been about individuals. Racism and bigotry are projected by both the majority...

Share