belonging

I.
Once, a couple years ago, when I was walking down SoHo at night by myself, a man hissed at me, "Stupid Chink," and spat. I have never been more frightened for my immediate well being, afraid not only of what he would do next, or was capable of doing, to me, but also of the implications of being a "stupid Chink," the implication that, though I was born and raised in America, had only visited China twice in my life, though my mother often jokes I am more American than Chinese, that somehow I did not belong there; but, if I don't belong in this country, where do I belong?

II.
Growing up in a small, largely white, middle class neighborhood, I didn't develop an allegiance with or even become aware of an Asian American community until I moved, at the age of 11, to a more diverse area, where Chinese American families sent their children to Chinese school, as if, by slaving for several hours each week over how to write and pronounce basic Mandarin, they could somehow become "more Chinese." Even then I avoided the Asian cliques, having had only white friends in elementary school, having only interacted with other Chinese because they were friends with my mother, because I was unfamiliar with the culture of Chinese America. I had never endured Chinese school, never gone to Chinese church; I found the "Got Rice?" logo (which all of the other Chinese teens seemed to love) distasteful.

On the other hand, I was acutely aware of my own racial identity, used to white children slanting their eyes at me, or strangers saying, "Ni hao," as if by knowing how to greet me in a language that wasn't even my native language, they somehow knew all there was to know about me. Especially in elementary school, being the only Asian with Asian parents (the other Chinese girl was adopted by a white American family), I became the oddity, the source of jokes, like how "thank you" in Chinese almost sounds like "shit shit."

III.
How can I reconcile the hard-earned success of my mother, who emigrated from China to pursue a Ph.D., managed to make enough money on her own to buy a decent house in the suburbs, send two children to college, with the working class Chinese I see every week in Chinatown, the old, hunchbacked cleaning lady who comes to my office every Friday, who can probably barely afford her rent? What decisions did my mother make, what turns of fate allowed her to gain access to higher education, a well-paid job, and comfortable housing, when hundreds of other Chinese immigrants are not so fortunate, living in cramped apartments and likely to be priced out?

Is she the exception?

IV.
1882: The Chinese Exclusion Act is passed, preventing further immigration of Chinese into America.
1924: The Immigrant Act is passed, prohibiting the immigration of East, Southeast, and South Asians.
1965: The Immigration and Nationality Act abolishes immigration quotas, once again allowing Asians to immigrate into the country.

For 80 years of American history, Asians have been excluded to some extent from entering the country; for even longer than that, they were categorically defined as foreign, ineligible for citizenship due to their non-white status.

V.
Where do I belong?