Scottish | Hong Kong Chinese
My Mother is originally from Hong Kong and immigrated to Canada with her family as a young child. My Father's ethnic background is Scottish, though his family has been in Canada for generations. For my Father, everything was completely new. My Mother, however, had lived in Canada for decades by the time they met and felt comfortable in North American cultural settings. We're also estranged from my Father's side of the family, so growing up, all the family events I attended were with my Chinese family. Therefore, I didn't feel like I combined the cultures of my Mother and my Father, as much as I was combining the cultures of my Mother and my home country Canada.
Confusion around my identity and subtle racism have been recurring themes in some of the challenges I've encountered based on my mixed identity. There's always the struggle of feeling as if you're not enough or that you're just outside of a cultural sphere. My appearance is fairly Caucasian compared to other biracial Asian-European people I've met, and I also have a very Scottish sounding surname. Because of these reasons, many people aren't aware that I'm Chinese and that I identify strongly as Canadian-Chinese. I've had people tell me that my plans for a Chinese New Year’s dinner was cultural appropriation, making me feel like I have to claim my cultural identity and justify these practices, but that I'm somehow less qualified to do so and perhaps should not. I've also heard many casually racist jokes made towards Asians, and when attempting to speak up against them, I'm met with comments such as 'but you're not really Asian' and therefore, should not take offence. Even my existence as a biracial person has been described as the 'Whitewashing' of an East Asian culture. It makes me feel like an outsider, and so I've continued to try and open dialogues about how different cultures can connect.
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