Identifying as Asian (pt. 1)

I'm Asian-American, but it doesn't feel that way. My family is Chinese, but I'm definitely American. I didn't grow up eating greasy Chinese takeout or feeling ashamed as I opened a big stinky tupperware full of 韭菜饺子. A lot of the trials of growing up Asian-American are foreign to me, because I grew up in Cupertino in the 90s, where my public high school was 70% Asian. Cupertino, the subject of a breathless WSJ article on white flight. Where now-million-dollar homes were advertised as 走路到天天, sold on adjacency to a now defunct Chinese market. Where, sometime around 1997, developers demolished a declining Whole Foods to make way for a 99 Ranch. Cupertino has changed in the decades since. The initial waves of Taiwanese immigrants were joined by Indian, and now by an enormous surge of Mainland Chinese. There is no one left to hand-wring about white flight. But, maybe owing to a unique family history, I don't feel attached to any of these groups.

My dad was the first to emigrate, leaving Taiwan for the US in the 70s. He bounced around the West, spending time in Colorado before finding himself in the Bay Area. You wouldn't know it from the way he intently watches CCTV today, but back in the day he was listening to the Grateful Dead, watching the 49ers, possibly experimenting with LSD, and definitely smoking weed. We recently bonded over listening to Fleetwood Mac. 

My mom and her parents came a decade later, in the early 80s. They had some friends in the area, who helped them settle first in SF Chinatown, then Mountain View. She met my dad via a mutual friend, and they eventually got married and had me. My first memories are of riding around Mountain View in my grandpa's Camry as he went about his morning ritual of buying a newspaper and a pack of cigarettes, and chatting up the business owners. Some of these local businesses are still open today - the convenience store and Mongolian BBQ on opposite corners of Castro St. in Mountain View, and Chef Chu's, which recently catapulted back into the spotlight (father of the director of Crazy Rich Asians). 

Here was the first alienation. I grew up as the Chinese community was transitioning. My parents had come to America helped by an older generation of scattered immigrants, who had long since assimilated out of necessity into a predominantly white community. These were the people my gramps talked to every morning, and I saw it in the way my dad changed his whole demeanor whenever his white coworkers came over for dinner. You can still feel it today walking into a place like Chef Chu's; the head waiter's (also CRA director's brother, btw) extremely friendly English greetings, the photo wall of fame, the menu descriptions, the secret Chinese menu...

Meanwhile, a new generation of Taiwanese immigrants was arriving. For them, a tight community existed from the outset. Cupertino Village had always been there. They had their own goals and inspirations. I believe these are the people who made their kids learn piano, sent them to Friday night Chinese school, and (most importantly?) introduced boba tea. Their restaurants didn't need to cater to foreigners.

I was certainly not one of them. For one, my parents were Chinese (my dad came from Taiwan, but Taiwanese/Chinese identity is a whole can of worms. TL;DR he's Chinese from the perspective of this writing). Kids made fun of my Mainland accent in Chinese school. I hated stinky tofu. It turns out that the more Asian your community, the more subtle ways there are to subdivide your identity.