“You’re whitewashed.” “You’re studying again?” “Why do you like to tan when most Asians enjoy being pale as copy paper?” “You’re smart because you’re Asian so you don’t have to study as hard.” It is a phenomenon that many bicultural people deal with, myself included. I hear these phrases from friends as well as family. They believe I’m supposed to be skewed one way or the other. But I’m an Asian American. I was born in America to a Chinese family. I go to a predominantly white cultured school. How did people expect me to not have two cultures in my blood? For as long as I can remember, I have never blended in.  Contrary to what I expected from movies and TV shows, I didn’t perfectly fit into a close-knit group of friends because of the complexities of being Asian American. Belonging to two ethnic groups that acted polar opposite one another, I often felt like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong space. I struggled to find a happy medium between white and Asian cultures. There was no one I knew who had the same exposure or understood the delicate nuances in both cultures as I did. I felt alone, and finding a friend group that would totally accept me seemed impossible. In my white circle of friends,  we gossiped endlessly about fashion and boys. I mastered these conversations but felt empty because these weren’t the only things, I wanted to discuss. Instead, I felt my own issues were never something I could discuss because it seemed that no one could relate to me to my bicultural experience. My white friends couldn't fathom why getting an 80 on an assignment was "bad" because most of their grades were in the 80s. They didn't understand why I had to play violin and piano before going out because they went whenever and wherever they pleased.  The expectations were always different and higher for me, and it was clear that my white friends reduced my differences to simplifications that missed the truth. My parents wanted more, expected more. I was intelligent because I had an Asian heritage, and, in their eyes, they saw me as a nerdy girl who couldn’t do anything because of her parents' strict goals. 

My Asian friends better understood the problems I faced at home, but our conversations didn't make it outside the orbit of academics, instruments, SAT scores, and what colleges they hoped to attend. Yes, college was important, but did the pursuit of it dictate every aspect of teenage life? Listening to their conversations, I felt stupid and lesser. Even though I felt I worked hard, it seemed like my Asian friends worked a hundred times harder than I did and made it seem like the easiest task to accomplish. My Asian friends never got less than an A- and spent hours practicing their instruments while simultaneously having perfect SAT scores. By comparison, my test scores were imperfect, and while my report card saw a B+; theirs never did.  I was considered the most “whitewashed.” Was having this label a bad thing? At least I wasn’t dumb when hanging around my white-cultured friends. It seemed that I was stuck between two groups of people. On the one hand, I was too “nerdy” and didn’t feel understood. On the other hand, I was "too white" and couldn't engage in my Asian friends’ conversations. I struggled to find a happy medium.

Finding peace and balance between the two cultures required me to accept that I would never truly belong to one culture or the other. Instead, I needed to find happiness by entertaining a  mix of both cultures.  I could grow up in America and follow white culture, but I couldn’t forget about my Asian heritage.  I settled into the rhythm of spending some time with both groups without staying long with either. And I was happy. I had spent so long trying to fit into one particular group that my identity was constrained like an ill-fitting piece of a jigsaw puzzle. It took me a long time to come to terms with balancing two culturally different groups of people, and I learned that I don’t have to belong to a clique to belong truly. I do not belong to a particular friend group, and because of this, I have never been happier.