hyphenate

“In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” -Toni Morrison 

I used to always write Asian-American. But I no longer do so. 

I am Asian American.

When I first heard of the uproar to drop the hyphen, I was initially confused about what seemed like a small, indifferent dash. Although its intent is to connect, hyphens can be seen as a symbol of division for people of color as if we are not completely American. 

I am fully Asian in the way my ancestors’ blood roars through my veins, keeping me alive as evidence of all their stories and my stories as well. 

I am fully American in the way the words run off my tongue and onto the page, not afraid of expression and not scared to unleash the stories trapped in me. 

While this is a duality that I have yet to master and will probably never master as it’s a life-long process, I can say now that I am confident in the complex identities that make me Asian American. 

I do not hyphenate Asian American because I believe that I cannot be separated as “other” in America. However, many other Asian Americans have found solace in hyphenating their identity because it serves as proof of their multicultural life and carries equal weight on both sides for them. 

For similar reasons, I always choose to hyphenate my ethnicity. When I get to the question on forms that ask for my ethnicity, I still hesitate. If there’s only one option, I get to pick if I’m feeling more Chinese or more Vietnamese that day, simplifying my ethnicities to a coin toss. If it’s fill-in-the-blank, I hyphenate as Chinese-Vietnamese.  

As a Chinese person, I am thrice/quadrice(?) removed from the original motherland. My great grandparents were the last generation to be born and raised in China (Guangzhou, to be exact) before they immigrated to Vietnam as adults. In Guangzhou, people speak primarily Cantonese, a southeastern Chinese dialect. When people think of the Chinese language, they automatically jump to Mandarin and neglect the nine or so other dialects that make up the vast country. Growing up, I was always confused as to why my family’s Chinese sounded so different from my Mandarin-speaking peers, especially since I went to schools with extremely large Chinese populations. I felt like an outcast from my own people. 

Despite the confusion and multiple generations that have passed since my family last resided in China, I still feel closely aligned to Chinese culture. For example, traditional dishes like Chinese cabbage stir fry with lap cheong (sausage) is a household favorite. It was also, in fact, the first dish my mom learned how to make as a young teen from her older brother when he started working as a cook at their arrival to the United States. During every holiday, relatives would shove lai shi (red envelopes) into my hands. My grandparents only called me by my traditional name, 心如. The point is I am Chinese.  

Second point being, the Chinese diaspora is not a monolith. Not everyone’s parents have to be directly from mainland China and know Mandarin fluently to be considered Chinese. 

There’s no doubt that Chinese and East Asian voices are pushed to the forefront of Asian American representation, often erasing Southeast Asians. As a result, I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I wasn’t just Chinese because I did not realize there was simply more. I did not understand my Vietnamese identity until far later in life. After my great grandparents left China as adults, my grandparents and parents were born and raised in Vietnam. While my parents are fluent in Vietnamese, they kept the language out of me and my siblings’ upbringing. At times, I feel like an outsider with this community because I don’t know Vietnamese and because of my Chinese surname, reminding me that we were not indigenous to the land. Now, I am putting the pieces of my childhood back together and I see how Vietnamese culture was just as intertwined as being Chinese and American was. While the words “eat,” “child,” and “Happy Lunar New Year” mark the extent of my knowledge of the language, I never feel any less love from Vietnamese adults as they shove food onto my plate and watch yet another Paris by Night episode at any given Vietnamese gathering. Bánh mì sandwiches were for road trips and tri-colored Vietnamese jello was for dessert. I grew up doing VoVinam and going to Vietnamese temples, like the one in Raleigh where my paternal grandparents rest infinitely at an ancestral shrine. The history of the Vietnam War is also wrapped in my genetics, which permanently altered the course of our bloodline and is solely the reason I am an American too. The point, again, is that I am Vietnamese. 

While I do not choose to hyphenate Asian American because I believe in my ability to fully be both simultaneously, I do choose to hyphenate Chinese-Vietnamese because I believe that my Chineseness is not complete without my Vietnameseness and that my Vietnameseness is not complete without my Chineseness. 

There is so much beauty in being fully whole and everything all at once, Chinese, Vietnamese, and American. I am learning to drown myself in that fullness and love.