My roommate, who is full Chinese, used to teach in the South Bronx. Some of her kids thought she was white because they assumed that “white” was the only other race outside of black and latino.

It’s hard to deal with the fact that people see what they want to see in you. I find it exhausting to constantly reassert my identity. Yes, I’m part Chinese. No, I’m not just white. Yes, I know I don’t look it. At times I wish I could simply pin a label to my sleeve.

But I am proud of both my heritages, so I will continue to answer these questions, even when they annoy me. I will walk into an Asian American event and act like I belong there. I will choose which identity to wear today because I can.

p.s. It’s cool that we are the same mix!

At work a student might walk away muttering, “stupid white bitch, ” when I’ve sent them back to class because they’re trying to cut, or they might warn a friend, in Spanish, that “la Chinita” is coming. They see me both ways—as a white woman, and as an Asian woman. I work with high school kids who are mostly African American and Latino. We have conversations about why they can’t assume that all the Chinese American girls are my daughters, because not all Asians look alike. We also talk about how it’s not cool to refer to someone by his or her race or ethnicity. I feel like they should know these things, since the offenders are all racial or ethnic minorities themselves, but that’s not always the case.

Last month I told my Irish-American father that I was going to read at the Asian American Writers Workshop open mic and he asked me how come I never go to Irish-American readings. I didn’t have a good answer but I asked my white husband what he thought. He came up with a good response. My father is second generation Irish-American; my great-grandparents on his side came to New York from Ireland in the early 20th century. There isn’t much about my father or his family that makes him more Irish than American other than their claim on their Irish-ness. On the other hand my mother is an immigrant from Taiwan. She has an accent. She keeps a Buddhist altar and curses in Taiwanese when life disappoints her. I’ve never been to Ireland, but I’ve been to Taiwan six times. My husband suggested that as a first generation American on my mother’s side, her cultural influence is just going to be stronger than my dad’s watered down Irish-ness. Which isn’t to say that I’m not completely American, either.

It’s complicated. My sister says she doesn’t feel that connected to her Taiwanese side. She wonders why I do, but then I remind her that a long time ago I used to speak Chinese. I don’t anymore, but I remember.

I’m also a writer. That’s complicated, too, because I write about white women and I write about Asian women. I even write about hapa women. Some people think you shouldn’t write from the point of view of races not your own, but I think this view might be too narrow for our times.

Yet, how will people take me seriously as an Asian-American writer when I don’t even have a Chinese name? Have you ever noticed? All the prominent hapa writers have an Asian middle name that clues you in to their (almost) secret Asian-ness. Maybe I won’t want to be pigeon holed as an Asian-American writer. I haven’t decided.

Even when you seek define yourself, as you must, the world doesn’t always agree with what you’ve chosen. Being hapa means waiting for the world to catch up, because we’re the future.