what have you learned about yourself? what have you learned about someone else? 

mei kane 

I’ve learned that writing, no matter what kind, is always a form of storytelling, and just how powerful stories are. I used to not understand the way writing inspires people who make and shake movements and ideas. I was aware of revolutionary works, but I always considered my writing as something polished and polite, nicely wrapped up with pretty words and carefully crafted sentences, to be viewed in literature analyzing essays. I see now that that is not the case, that writers have incited change and challenged the norm, and helped others to do the same, and that my writing can as well. Additionally, by interviewing Saskia Curry, I was able to gain an additional perspective on what it’s like to be biracial in the Asian American community, and learn how to respectfully and accurately communicate her story.

interview excerpts
 

mei interviews saskia

MEI:
Where do you most like to celebrate your culture?

SASKIA:
I celebrate my culture a lot when I’m at my grandparents’ house. I go down to Virginia, which is where they live because when my grandpa joined the Navy he moved to Virginia, where a lot of Filipinos are.

MEI:
So your grandparents immigrated to the U.S.?

SASKIA:
Yes, they immigrated when my mom was two, which makes me second generation. So they live in Virginia. Whenever I go down to their house there’s a bunch of Filipinos there because there’s a big Filipino community. All of my cousins live there and it’s when I get to see other Filipinos. We eat a lot of Filipino food and we have line dances at parties, listen to Filipino music. My dad puts on TV Patrol, which is a Filipino channel. My grandparents talk a lot in Tagalog and when we have relatives over I hear it a lot. I’m very immersed in the culture there whereas here in New York I’m not at all.

MEI:
When people ask “what are you,” how do you respond?

SASKIA:
When people ask “what are you?” I get what they’re saying, I understand why they’re asking me I just think it’s phrased poorly. I say that I’m half Filipino, half British. I could just say that I’m from New York, that I’m American, but I also know that that’s not really what they’re asking. People don’t often ask a white person “what are you?” My mom gets really offended when people ask. My dad waited a long time to say this when they were dating, but he did once ask my mom “where are your parents from?” and he wasn’t sure how to phrase it but she answered “Virginia. Virginia Beach,” because she knew exactly what he was asking.
 

saskia interviews mei

SASKIA:
So would you like to introduce yourself?

MEI:
My name is Mei Kane, I am 17 and I’m a senior at Marymount. My sister and I were adopted according to the documents when I was 18 months old from Gaozhou, China, which is the southeast province of Guangdong.

SASKIA:
What was it like for you growing up?

MEI:
It’s interesting because up to a certain age kids are very “colorblind” in terms of noticing ethnicity or skin tone. I don’t think I’ve ever had a conscious moment where I’m like, “Oh, I don’t look like my parents or anything”. There are some people who don’t tell their kids that they are adopted if they look the same at first. But my parents were always like, “Okay you’re adopted.” In young childhood that never really affected me at all.

SASKIA:
When you grew up did you start to see a shift?

MEI:
Later I think it ties into a bit more. Like today they are going to come to the reception. They’re gonna be some of the only non-Asian people here. I think I have this sort of weird hang up because Li and I are ninety-nine percent Chinese or whatever. We are very Chinese. But then we did not grow up in a Chinese culture or household. So sometimes I feel almost like a “fake Asian” a bit because I’m so Americanized, and like a lot of Asian kids are, but I still lack this big anchor to a culture that most do have still.

SASKIA:
How were you able to find connections to your culture?

MEI:
I think for a lot of kids who are adopted their parents will make sure that they go to Chinese school and like have all those cultural groups. I know some kids who are and still do that but we never showed interest in that when we were younger, and I think a lot of kids don’t. So until high school with the Asian Cultures Club and everything there was not a huge connect to Asian Cultures. […] I think that the whole Asian Visibility thing was not huge until high school which was a whole trip in itself.