Julie Tucker

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Defining "Me"

Skin color has always been a part of my family life. My skin color is always the first thing that is pointed out to my family by strangers. When strangers look at our family, they see, a white family of three with an Asian girl. Most people assumed that I was the son's friend and not an immediate member of the family. If we were overseas in Thailand, many would assume I was a maid or a child of one of the maid's my parents hired.
When I was two weeks old, a young, American Peace Corp couple, decided to adopt after unsuccessfully trying to have children. At the advice of a local friend, the couple went to the local hospital to try and find a child to adopt. The doctor that interviewed them had a very lackadaisical attitude about the whole process.
"Take one home, try it out. If you don't like it, bring it back, and try another one," the doctor said. I always thought this made me sound like a used car. My parents took home the first child that caught their eye. Four months later, paperwork had been completed - I was officially part of their family.
Unlike many international adoptees, I stayed in my birth country for a number of years. After my parents were divorced, my father continued his career with the United Nations in Bangkok, Thailand. He also remarried a Thai woman and had two "Amerasian" children who spent their entire lives in Thailand. Both my half-sister and half-brother have since moved to the U.S. to continue their education.
While in Thailand, I was surrounded by employees of the United Nation. I was also sent to an international school in Bangkok, Thailand. In this setting, my peers and I grew in an international melting pot. Unlike my later experiences in U.S. schools, my international school friends and I loved the differences we were surrounded by. We grew up eating Indian food at Jayanthi's house, having tea at our British friend's house, having Malaysian food at Sofie's house, Pilipino food at Eunice's, etc. All of us were encouraged to explore the different cultures we came in contact with. This acceptance of cultures was what I thought to be the norm.
When my parents divorced in third grade, my mother moved the two of us back to the U.S. We went from a comfortable existence with two maids to a life of thrift store clothing and food boxes when we moved back to my mother's childhood home - a quiet, conservative naval town. Here is where I spent the remainder of my childhood.
Suddenly, I was uplifted from a culturally enriched and accepting environment to a white, upper-middle class to wealthy neighborhood which was insulated from visions of poverty by the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. On our side of the bridge, there were manicured lawns, teenagers with Jettas, BMW's, and with their parents credit card. On the other side of the bridge were the barrios.
When I entered third grade, I was one of two minorities in the third grade. I remember all the questions and comments I received, "Were you left out in the sun? Is that a sunburn?"

As I grew older, the lack of diversity really took its toll on me. I remember good friends of mine calling me "chink" in jest. I remember feeling completely confused by the mixed emotions that slur brought out in me. On one hand, I wasn't Chinese, but on the other hand, "chink" is a derogatory slur that demeans Asians of any ethnicity.
Being the "token minority" in one's own family and in one's community, seems to cause strangers to ask personal, probing, and inappropriate questions.
"Oh, are you a friend of Andy(my younger Caucasian brother)? Oh you're his sister… how can that be? Adopted? Do you know your real mother? No honey, I mean your REAL mother. What do you mean she's your real mother, she doesn't look like you." My favorite question, "where is your accent?"
"Um, my English is my first language and my mother's family can trace their routes back to the Mayflower. In fact, her family took part in the Okalahoma Land Rush and the Civil War. My Great-great grandfather was a Union officer in charge of a black battalion." How I loved the dumbfounded look that crossed the faces of my interrogators.
On the other hand, I'd have class mates who loved to sing me the whole "Chinese Japanese, dirty knees" ditty. It's as if my difference in color gave people the unspoken right to ask inappropriate and thoughtless questions and comments of a young child.
I think the hardest part about being a transracial/interracial adoptee was the lack of forethought my parents put into my up-bringing. Growing up with the western belief that everything that is good is white and everything that is evil or bad is black takes a toll on a child. Even while this wasn't taught by my parents, its covert message seemed to slyly permeate my subconscious. I remember receiving two Barbie dolls one year: a curly, blonde, blue-eyed Ballerina Barbie and a dark skinned, brown eyed, straight black-haired Barbie. Even though I resembled the dark-haired Ballerina Barbie, I never wanted to identify with her. And in my play, I always made the dark Barbie the bad character and the blonde Barbie the good character.
Growing up in a white family never prepared me for the racism that I would face, because my immediate family never had to face it. Even with their culturally conscious views of race, my parents never thought to discuss how racism could effect me or thought of how raising me in a "white bubble" would affect my self-identity. It's as if they believed that once they adopted me, the hard part was over.
As a teenager, trying to create some sort of self-identity was really difficult. When I thought about myself, I didn't perceive myself as having a color. When I thought of my physical self, I considered my self ugly because I didn't fit the 'ideal woman" stereotype of my community. When others saw me, they saw an Asian, a minority, someone who was different.
Where does one begin to create a positive and strong sense of identity? Where does one begin?
I started my journey by moving out of my hometown to a more liberal community in San Diego, a neighborhood called Hillcrest. This was/is San Diego's gay and arts neighborhood. Here, I found access to the arts, other cultures, literature, etc. I became a frequent visitor to the local used bookstore and found myself delving into books about Asian-American History. I also discovered one of my first ethnic authors, a favorite of mine, Maxing Hong Kingston. Her "talking stories" really struck a cord in me and led me on a personal search for literature from outside a white mainstream perspective. These books helped me realize that I wasn't alone in my experiences, but that other cultures had also had similar experiences. This insight helped me see that my experiences were global and that my experiences crossed color and cultural lines.
After spending a few years in San Diego, I decided to move to a more urban setting, San Francisco. I longed to be in a city that gave me access to the arts, to literature, to music, to other cultures…basically, a richer perspective than what I had been exposed to in San Diego.
Being in San Francisco was the first time I'd found a place in the U.S. where I was comfortable in my skin. Yes, there was racism, but for the first time since leaving Thailand, I wasn't the token minority. I was one of the masses. I'm not sure if I can describe how wonderful it feels to be able to blend in and not always have someone see you as different because of your skin color, but in San Francisco, I could do that.
In San Francisco, I also had access to ethnic foods and cultures that I had been introduced to as a child. I could wander through Chinatown, the Richmond District and the outer Sunset and encounter foods and smells that reminded me of my years in Thailand.
Occasionally, I meet people who still believe in the Asian myth of: school nerd, incredibly intelligent in math and science. Yet, in my own way, I help to dispel htat myth. When these people see how lacking in mathematical skills, their notions of the "model Asian" is laid to rest.
Here in the Bay Area, I've found the room to breathe and the room to grow. I've had many bumps along the way, but I continue to make headway and continue to grow. I've spent most of my twenties forging and crafting a unique identity for myself. My sense of identity is a constantly changing and growing one.
In my life journey here in the Bay Area, I met my husband who is white. We have wonderful and interesting dialogues about race, privilege, and ethnicity. Coming from a poor background, he has a very different view of affirmative action then I do. While we have a difference in opinion, we both continue our debates and grow as people.
Prior to meeting me, my husband never felt the affects of racism. Now, when he hears discussions about racism, it has dawned upon him that his future children could potentially have to deal with racism.
If I had to describe myself, I would say that I'm a scholar of migration, of culture, and of ethnic studies. These areas of interest were first used to define myself, but then led to the formation of a strong and personal interest in how the story of others. When I look at my bookshelf, it is filled with books such as: Reading Lolita in Tehran, The Spirit Catches You, and finally, You Fall Down, American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. The life stories of other cultures in the U.S. and in native countries is one of the ways I familiarize myself with other cultures. It is only through familiarizing myself with other cultures do I learn how similar we are.
Sure, skin color and culture can separate people, but we all still want to be healthy, be surrounded by our loved ones, and enjoy the company of others. These are just a few of the shared traits of human life.
In my process of creating a self-identity, I've found that I've created a rich mosaic of cultural experiences and ideas that have become me. In this way, I have found that it isn't race that defines me, but that it is culture. It is through broadening my viewpoint, past that of the dominant racial identity of the West that has created an internal understanding of the beauty and the vivid histories of others.
While I have been confronted by the racist ideals of a few individuals, these moments of confrontation haven't defined me or embittered me. I'm a person who is learning to come to terms with self and a person who becomes enriched by the cultures of others.