When people ask me, “what are you?” I know what they mean. They want to know my ethnicity. I know they've been staring at me from the buffet table, from across the room, and sometimes even from the doorway of a classroom. Sometimes they're alone and sometimes they're talking with friends, debating my race according to my features.
I tell them, “I'm Spanish and Chinese.” Occasionally I'll get an “I knew it,” but I usually get, “Wow, interesting.” The thing is, I'm not just Spanish and Chinese. My mother is full Ecuadorian. My father is mostly Chinese. But he's also Spanish, French, and Japanese. I have a lot of beautiful blood in me and it took a long time for me to see it that way. So why not tell them? Why not map out my ancestral tree down to my distilled bloodline from a great-grandfather who may have been Mongolian?
Once, I thought about doing just that--drawing my family tree, branches and all--and carrying copies with me as I go, handing them out like fliers, advertising my “uniqueness” to the curious many. But yet, they would still seem surprised when I tell them. They have a hard time understanding that a Chinese man and a Spanish woman can have a child. Or they just feel happy that they can brag about knowing such a rare specimen exists.
My supernatural existence exhilarates them. They stop listening after that. They don't want to know the rest. They hear Chinese and their mind wanders into stereotypes of buck-toothed slanty eyed, small-membered, fishy stinking Asian boy. I've had to deal with my fair share of tiny dick jokes. But then they look at me again. And wonder, how I am almost nothing Chinese and almost everything Latino.
The author at age 2
Again, a cluster of stereotypes floods their heads like a raging racist waterfall. Now, I'm a greasy-haired, chino-wearing, hard-drinking, Spanish boy. I've confused them. They think of some small hint of shitty mandarin or Spanish they picked up from a novella they watched by mistake or a three minute “How to Speak Mandarin” video they streamed just for fun."Essay", "Knee How"--words they don't know how to spell or pronounce urge a sound from their lips. They want to show me how learned they are. How they know more about my cultures than I do. They expect me to clap, to cheer, to exonerate their mispronunciation and self-humility at a poor attempt to feed their ego.
I smile. I correct them. We laugh but now, in my mind, I think of yelling, shouting, shaking my fist at their pale faces, explaining to them their shaded racism. Because it's not their fault. Their ignorance is a birthright. I feel ashamed of myself. Of my race. Of my ignorance. I don't speak mandarin or Cantonese. I don't speak Spanish.
Every time I get hit with a lick of spicy Spanish from a stranger, I'm left head tilted and apologetic. Their quick tongue, slipping out foreign words like notes from a violin's bow. “I'm sorry. I don't speak Spanish. Lo siento,” I have to whisper in shame, stumbling over my speech like a mutt over his own feet.
When I’m allowed to show off my scarce, next-to-nonexistent, Chinese vocabulary, I leave the person I’m speaking with a brief feeling of awe and curiosity. “You know Chinese?” they ask in Mandarin. Yet, usually, only one word is all I have to deliver. I know the mandarin name of the bun, but not the proper answer to your question. I reply “sui sui,” meaning, “a little”. And this phrase is a code in its own right. It’s taught to non-native speakers to let others know that they only know that one word they just tried to show off. The difference is, I know it’s a code, so I feel the shame of it.
I am Chinese. I am Spanish. But I’m not. I’m the American mutt, trying to place my identity. So the next time when you ask, “What are you?” don’t expect an answer that can be easily checked off in a box.
