Adrienne Karyadi,
Los Angeles, CA.
I think of this as a supermarket check-out line experience: I’m waiting with strangers in some kind of line, and they notice me with my son. My son tries to engage them and they respond. And then they start wondering: what ethnicity is he? because he doesn’t look like he matches his mom’s ethnicity. Sometimes I’m patient and respond, “My husband’s ethnically Chinese.” Other times I’ll say, “He’s three.” The most uncomfortable times for me were when people would respond proudly, “I KNEW it! Half-Asian babies are the CUTEST!” because it makes me irritable and defensive, as if I selected my husband based on the potential attractiveness of our offspring. Interestingly, my son internalized that he was different and “Chinese” very early in life, even before he began schooling. We had to explain that although my husband is ethnically Chinese, he identifies himself as Indonesian (which is where he was born) because he has never been to China and never spoke that language.
Then there’s the time my son was called a “mongrel” by his classmates… but that’s another story.
