metamorphosis
Growing up in Chinatown, Dawn assumed being Asian was the norm, yet she often felt disconnected from the cultural expectations tied to her ethnicity. To compensate, she overloaded herself with activities like robotics and tutoring, believing this would help her fit the stereotype of the "ideal Asian." Now, she’s learning to embrace her identity and prioritize balance, realizing that being Asian is simply who she is, not something she needs to prove.
I grew up thinking being Asian was the norm.
Living in Chinatown meant that I was surrounded by an absurd amount of Asian kids. I never realized how being Asian was considered “rare” until I was in 4th grade. As someone who grew up in the Bay Area, where around 27.9% of the residents are Asian, I just assumed there were a bunch of Asians everywhere.
I went to the same elementary and middle schools with mostly the same people who were all Asian. As grateful as I was, I felt alienated there too.
You might be thinking, “How did you feel isolated? You were surrounded by people who are the same race and ethnicity as you!”
To me, being Asian meant you were able to read, write, and speak Chinese; especially both Cantonese and Mandarin. It meant you had to take tons of extracurriculars, like art, kung fu, Kumon, and piano lessons— just like all the movie characters. I had to have long, silky, and straight black hair. I had to eat rice and “Asian” side dishes or rice noodles everyday. Most importantly, being Asian meant being good at math, so you’d be smart enough to get into an Ivy League.
Looking back, I was being really dramatic, but it felt like the end of the world, like I was a huge failure.
I was never “that Asian”. I only knew basic conversational skills. I couldn’t read or write in Chinese. My parents were very lax; the complete opposite of tiger parents, in fact. They never forced me to do anything that I didn’t want to. And I wasn't necessarily bad at math, per se, but I wasn’t as good as the others and would often get confused. In fact, in 3rd grade, I had a parent-teacher conference and my teacher told my parents that I needed extra help in math and how they should enroll me into an educational program, such as Kumon. Hearing this felt horrible to me because I’m Asian, so I’m expected to be instantly good at math. I felt like I should never ask for help, especially with math, so in my head, getting tutored was absolutely off the table.
About a year ago, I realized that four years of high school would go by quickly, so I decided to take on as much work as possible to present myself as a strong candidate to admissions officers.
Now, I’m part of my school’s robotics team, working as a tutor, the vice-president of a club, a regular volunteer at my local library, and an intern at REALSOUL—all while balancing my own social life and school work. In a week, I’m tutoring kids for 10 hours, attending meetings and learning how to code for robotics, working with others to plan and set up for our club, doing work for this internship, and studying for AP World History.
I’ve been consistently getting high grades on my math tests and understanding the materials, but I still struggle with feeling Asian.
In some ways, I’ve become the definition of “Asian” that I’ve described since I’m overworking myself with extracurriculars to put on my college application. This is different from my life before for obvious reasons— I don’t have time to stop and take a break. If I’m not clocked in and tutoring kids, I’m doing my school assignments, internship drafts, or club meeting slides. If I’m not writing, I’m checking in on my friends and talking to them. If I’m not messaging anyone, I’m on Quizlet, studying and remembering terms for AP World History.
If I were able to write a letter to my younger self, I’d let her know that trying to do more work to overcompensate on supposed lack of “Asian-ness” wouldn’t work. Despite all the work you’re doing, you’ll still feel the same. Yes, you’ll be working as much as what you thought an “ideal Asian” should be doing, but you’ll be too exhausted to do anything else.
I’ve learnt that while it's important to do extracurriculars for your college application, you should space your activities out and give yourself breaks.
Next semester, I’ll be cutting down the amount of work I’ll be doing. I’ll keep volunteering, but only during summer break, when I don’t have a bunch of responsibilities to maintain. For the club, we’ll recruit more officers, so that the other presidents and I wouldn’t need to shoulder all the work. By making these adjustments, I’ll be prioritizing balance and stability, which will ensure that I'll be able to have time to explore myself and interests.
I should never need to “out-Asian” myself because being Asian isn’t a spectrum. It’s just a label based on your ancestry, and it has nothing to do with me and my abilities.
About Writer: My name is Dawn and I'm a highschool sophomore! My current interests include playing Stardew Valley, listening to music, and learning about other people's lives. I can get annoyingly nosy, so I love listening to people talk about themselves for hours.