I was born in upstate New York

I was raised speaking only English in a middle-class suburb around very nice people

I gravitated towards American and European history and literature in school, chose French as my second language

I grew up in a Protestant church, singing hymns and going to youth groups

I attended public schools my whole life

I majored in American studies at a public university

I taught English

I am a scholar of English Education and literacy

I am America in so many ways, and I am certainly American.

Or am I?

I was born to Chinese immigrant parents who spoke with an accent despite their high levels of education and their eventual American naturalization.

My mother was told that teaching me to speak Mandarin or Taiwanese would be a liability and would label me as an “English Language Learner” putting me in a different category from the other kids.

I only know the rich histories of Asian Americans like Yuri Kochiyama, Larry Itliong, and Grace Lee Boggs because of my own research and communities.

I go to a multiracial church after years of feeling alienated by a larger Christian community which felt insular with empty promises of faith without justice

I am married to a Latino immigrant man who was once undocumented and adopted two African American girls who suffered years of alienation as people glared at them as children on the street with their homeless parents.

I fear for students that look like me, think like me, and fear much worse for those that have backgrounds, stories, histories, skin tone like my husband and daughters.

I am confronted by this dichotomy when…

…Chinese New Year or Moon Festival come around and I become the cultural expert on celebrations that I am only vaguely familiar with myself

…I go to my son’s Chinese school, and it is assumed that I speak so I feel ashamed or hesitant to even be there

…I hear stories of Americans, like me, who know no other home being told to “go back” to some other country

…I get asked if I speak English or someone compliments on how well I speak

…I see other Christians deride people of other faiths, especially our Muslim brothers and sisters, and turn a blind eye to the suffering of the world

…I see all of my children, the two I bore and the two I adopted, play together. They are all American, but they are never quite American either. Their realities are always in jeopardy.

…I don’t feel safe against racial slurs, against attack when I am running or even when I am sitting in my office in broad daylight.

Today, I am afraid because no matter how I feel, no matter my nationality

I will never be quite American.