My family moved several times as I was growing up, and I never quite felt like I fit in. At school in Hong Kong, I felt more American than Chinese. And at school in Boise, Idaho, I felt more Chinese than American. I wasn’t comfortable with how I stood out everywhere.
My mother is a Chinese Vietnamese refugee, and my father is a white American. I was born in Los Angeles and lived in Hong Kong before returning to Los Angeles for college. My “mixed” upbringing inspired me to think about the challenges we face in understanding and embracing our various identities.
In a class at the University of Southern California called Los Angeles and the American Dream, I learned about how various immigrant groups developed distinct neighborhoods across Greater L.A.’s 101, 5, 10, and 210 highways. People feel safe when they are surrounded by others who look, talk, eat, and think like them. I started to understand the divides and cliques that still define large swaths of Southern California.