I get a lot of eyebrow raises in Taiwan when people ask me where I come from, and I tell them I was born in America, raised by a Taiwanese father and Shanghainese mother (the truth is I identify with internet culture the most, because I never felt I belonged anywhere). The political tension between Taiwan and China is real, exacerbated by the recent passing of the national security law in Hong Kong, once a bastion of free speech.
I witnessed a similar cultural divide in my family growing up. My mother grew up in an era void of opportunities, but was raised in Jing'An, one of the central districts of Shanghai. Unlucky with her parents, she walked herself to school and bought her own groceries starting from the age of 5, and designed all her own clothes and dresses in her teenage years, and left the country after the Open Door policy was passed. She's fierce, bold, dominant, outspoken, fashionable, clever, and doesn't take bullshit. She's the strongest woman I know, and no one I know has truly been able to compare to her tenacity and inner strength.
My father grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, and immigrated to the US in his 20s. I'm not as familiar with his background, but he was the only one out of his eight siblings to pass the college entrance exams that enabled him to study in the US and immigrate there. His personality is much more passive and sensitive, and not very outspoken compared to my mother.
I see these qualities within me. I'm sensitive and soft, yet tenacious and outspoken. People confuse my kindness and vulnerability with weakness and foolishness, but in reality I'm more than confident in myself and my intuition, and have clear boundaries. I'm orderly in the things I enjoy doing, yet disorganized in other ways. I feel like I'm a paradox. I don't feel American. I don't know what it feels like to feel American. I wouldn't say I'm completely Asian either. I'm sometimes an artist. Sometimes a technologist. Sometimes a researcher. Sometimes a designer. Sometimes something in between.
Everyone struggles with identity. Sometimes I wish we could talk about it more. But these days I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with being a hybrid of things.