Licensing

Imposing identity upon others

Certainly if you go internationally, identity is placed upon you. For me, I grew up across the street here, I grew up being in Chinatown every week. At the same time I grew up with this really heavy J-A influence in my life from my brother doing shotokan and then me doing shotokan and studying that my for whole life, and then studying Japanese in college and then living in Japan several times and going to school there. I have felt probably more of an affinity with Japanese culture than Chinese culture, so I might say my identity might blend over there, but then people might object to that, saying “Well wait a minute, my identity of you”—being put on me—is like, “You’re Chinese.” But the people who tell me I’m not Chinese the most in the world are Chinese people! No one tells me I’m not Chinese more than my sister!