I have been asked What are you? more times than I have been asked my name. My body is expected to represent much more than merely its flesh.

I am asked if I speak English. I am asked where I’m really from. Where I was born. I’m asked what kind of food I eat. Where my parents are from. I’m asked which parent is which. I’m asked why I don’t speak Spanish, and why I don’t speak Chinese. Why I don’t know my own culture. When I insist that I’m American, that my parents are American, and that they’ve never spoken any other language except English, my words are chewed up, contorted in their mouths; spit back at me like insults…

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