Face Value

It's time for my monthly update on this thing.

We , as people, have this weird need for ethnic identification right off the bat. It's especially true of Asian Americans. We have this yearning for the identification and knowledge of everyone around us. When we meet someone, we immediately categorize them in all these sorts of groups. Being a college student, these groups tend to revolve in student organizations, class year, and hometown. Being an Asian American college student at UCI, with the diversity of our campus, it also revolves around what ethnicity that person is if that person is of Asian descent.

Having a discussion about this with my other Asian friends, we all seem to do this. If we meet another Asian person, we'll immediately try to figure out what ethnicity that person is. We subconsciously have all these triggers for what it means to be Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Japanese or what have you. Most of the time, my peers and I have no problem identifying other people.

The problem comes when people start trying to figure out what I am. They'll look at me for a minute and try to figure it out.

"So Anthony....what are you?"

"Oh, I'm human yo. You?"

"No no, I mean, nationality?"

A lot of people mean ethnicity when they use the word "nationality." Nationality refers to one's citizenry. In that case, I'm American since I am an American citizen. Depending on who's asking, I've been asked if I'm part Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, white, Korean, Chinese or they just give up.

So when people ask what my nationality is, I just smile at them and say, "I'm American."