============================================================== To reach ALL SJD members, please send to sjd@satjadham.net ... Do NOT include any other addresses when sending to the list... Include as LITTLE of the original messages as possible........ Message sent by: Amphephone Phettaphong *** Announcement: *** Please send your member fee to Victor if you haven't done so. ============================================================== Sabaidii thook qon, Thanks for all a good words from Doen, Ai kongkoe, and Ai Bon. I Am glad that many of you appreciated my writing. Also I am glad that the story I've written have touch many of your heart. Below is the final episode of: My not so called home - Back in America. I’ve been asked countless times by countless faces in different places this ubiquitous question: "What are you?" They ask perhaps because of my appearance. I’ve been asked at one point or another whether I am Chinese or Japanese. I was born in this country, and thought that I am an American. I didn’t think much about what the question phrase what-are-you would mean. It seemed a straight-forward question and I always answered in a straight-forward manner: "I am half-Laotian and half-Vietnamese." But then there are other tag questions like where are you from?, what’s your nationality?...in essence, what are you? While I was in junior high, it was difficult to explain to a lot of kids in school, what my background was because they didn’t want to hear a whole story. They wanted a one-word answer like: "Chinese", "Vietnamese", etc. This was also the time that I began to have a struggle between identity and culture within myself, commonly known as a cultural-identity crisis. Most of the Asian kids that I met in my school were born here or neither fresh off Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia and since I couldn’t speak Lao or Vietnamese, they didn’t consider me neither Laotian or Vietnamese at least part of their heritage. One way or another I was crushed. My surprise upon being born here when all of a sudden, all of what you knew who you were is suddenly ripped apart from you all because you supposedly can’t speak the language or grow up in a setting that was predominantly that particular influence? I was going through shock and depression. Not to mention anger. To deal with it, I rejected anything that closely resembled Laotian or Vietnamese. I wanted to choose my own culture and thought at that time that Chinese would be perfect because I admired it so much. Before I seriously undertook trying to hide under the guise of my Chinese fascination, I felt that it was a task I could not undertake because I was not Chinese either. I realized that I was born in America and an American citizen live in this country. I was in my I’m-an-American-girl crusade and tried to sublimate my anger to a more laudable expression - I excelled in assimilating. I exposed myself to American pop culture and all that. However, amidst all this identity confusion, most of my friends happened to be Asian. Who was I fooling? All I wanted to be was accepted. In my high school senior year, I realized that people don’t realize what they are asking when they ask: What are you? What’s your nationality? Where are you from?. When they ask about nationality, what they really mean is your ethnicity. For instance, why would you ask someone who doesn’t look, say white, what’s their nationality when it seems obvious that they were born here? I hear a lot of people say things like, "My nationality is half-x and half-y. But I was born here" or "I’m so and so" (even though they are naturalized citizens). When you speak of nationality, it means where you were born which is an all-together different thing from ethnicity. Some people just don’t get it. At present, I’ve learned to accept that I am, by nationality, Lao but that my ethnicity is Laotian and Vietnamese. I’m learning how to read and write Lao’s language from my father, I’ve grown to appreciate my Laotian heritage besides the Vietnamese part of me. I’m now proud to be part of these two rich cultures and I’m glad that I’ve been added to a third one as well--American. Good day, Amp _____________________________________________________________ Email Powered by Everyone.net _ ***************************************************************** Visit SatJaDham Homepage at: http://www.satjadham.org (or .net) *****************************************************************