Don’t ask me, “What are you?”

Cecile Nguyen
Austin, TX

Alternative title could also be “I hate the Asian Guessing Game.”
I really don’t mind people being curious about my ethnicity. What I do mind is how people go about finding out my ethnicity. “Are you Chinese? Japanese? Korean?…[list goes on]” Believe me, they’ll keep going until I stop them. And they will get some sense of relief because now they know. I am Vietnamese and no you can’t “tell” that I am Vietnamese by looking at me; I can’t tell who else is Vietnamese just by looking at them. At any rate, if I don’t stop one soon enough with “No, I’m Vietnamese,” I have been asked “What are you?” What a loaded question! Reasonable answers are:
– a Human
– a Woman
– a UT Alumna with a Degree in Advertising
– a Gamer
– a Fully Employed Project Manager
– a Spirited Austinite with a Penchant for Making Cards, Cooking with Friends, and Loving Her Life and the Important People In It
What Am I? Sick and tired of answering that question in particular, that’s what.


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