Luck in Four-Leaf Clovers and in a Thousand Folded Cranes - A Reflection by Megan Wray

“What are you?”  

Human. Canadian. Female. Writer. To which aspect of my life are you referring? Please, be more specific. There are a multitude of adjectives I identify with.

But I know this is not a philosophical question of identity; this is question of ethnicity.

I am biracial.

The problem with the question “What are you?” is not in the lack of clarity. I know exactly what you’re saying when you ask that. It alludes to your dichotomizing world view: one is either this or that, but cannot be both. The exclusivity of this is only furthered by the notion of “othering”: the idea that white is default and all else is “other.”

You don’t care that I’m white, you care that I am Japanese. Yet, I am not Japanese — I am half.

This distinction is vital. I am not a “white washed” Asian girl, I am white too. I am just as Caucasian as I am Japanese. Therefore, I act as such. I eat udon with hashi (chopsticks), but my regular utensil of choice is a fork. I didn’t know what the English word for shoyu (soy sauce) was until I was seven, but if you take me to a Japanese restaurant, I’ll only order gohan (rice) because I hate sushi. I’m not a bad driver, but if I was it’d be because I get too into whatever ‘70s song is playing through my speakers, not because of my race.

Being biracial doesn’t mean I have to separate my cultures, it means I get to blend them together to make my own.

I get to find luck in four-leaf clovers and in a thousand folded cranes.

Sometimes it’s not easy, though. Growing up, I never played with Barbie dolls who resembled me; I still hardly see multicultural actors on my television screen. Society tells me that I am “too white” to fit in with Japanese people, but “too Asian” to fit in with white people. My body tenses up at the mention of Pearl Harbour or Hiroshima as if I should be ashamed of one and proud of the other.

“My people” are responsible for both, while simultaneously also victims. It always feels as though I have to pick a side of myself with which I identify more.

But this isn’t a “poor me” story. I know my privilege. I am a mixed woman who sits beside Caucasian men and people of colour in my university lectures. I am fully aware that this may not have had if I had been born a few decades before I was. I have never had to fight for the right to drink water from the same fountain as other human beings. I am incredibly fortunate that my biggest racial issue is the way in which people view my identity, though this does not diminish the ways in which our society could be better.

Your racism may not seem as racist to you because you know I am partially white, but my sister should never have to tell me that a customer called her a “halfer” at work. “You don’t look that Asian” should never be viewed as a compliment. My identity is not a thing that you must distance yourself from in order to ask me about it.

If “What are you?” means “What is your background?” or “Are you multicultural?”, then ask me that instead.

There are a multitude of adjectives that describe me, biracial is just one of them. I am a writer, female, Canadian. I am human.