What are you? — by Ms. Shannel Carnett, Division of Arts and Languages

What are you?

A simple question. Yes, it should be simple.

But they don’t see the children point and run away, calling me “monster” when all I wanted to do was to call them “friend”.
They don’t see that I notice when clerks run away before I can speak to them in their mother tongue.
They don’t hear me being called “ghost girl” by my own mother and her siblings during family reunions.
They don’t hear her siblings asking, “Can she understand what we’re saying?” as they place a fork down in front of me instead of chopsticks like the rest of my family. They don’t see the smile slipping when they laugh at my request for chopsticks and keep the fork lying next to my bowl.
They don’t notice my nodding become strained as my aunt—my mother’s sister—enthusiastically explains a New Year tradition that I’ve celebrated since I was still in diapers.
They don’t feel the discomfort when I hear my own friends and family, “You’re not Chinese.”

So, it should be easy then, right?

I should pretend and say that I’m white. Yes, that would be easy.

And yet, when my classmates saw me get a 100% on my math test, they would insist that “it’s because you’re Chinese.”
They don’t see the hours I spent slaving away every night on my studies, just so that I could have a chance of a better future. My own future.
They don’t understand my frustration, my disgust when my grandmother—my father’s mother—tries to convince me to give up on my studies—my future—and use my “exotic” appearance to “catch a rich man”.
They don’t hear my mother’s family complaining that I should be at least five foot eight when the average height for an American woman is five foot four.
They don’t hear the disbelief from my father’s family when they hear that I’m treated as the “minority” in my mother’s country. Yet, they find it understandable if I’m treated the same in my father’s country.
They don’t notice my confusion when I open my Christmas present to find double eyelid tape when I know that behind my glasses, I have my father’s eyes.
They don’t feel the burning in my throat and pain in my chest when they look at me like an imposter and say, “but you’re not white” when my DNA report says that the white man’s name on my birth certificate is, in fact, my father.

So, once again, “What are you?”

“What am I?”

So, I beg you to tell me. Please help me answer this very basic question.

What am I?