Neither Fish nor Fowl: Locating Identity in the Gap between Race and Culture

Abstract

This article discusses the author’s experience of growing up in 1970s rural America as a person of Chinese descent in a predominantly White and Latinx community. The author, the daughter of American-born Chinese parents, examines the dichotomy between race and culture and its impact on her sense of self and clinical work. Drawing from personal encounters and observations, the author examines the lived experience of tokenism and of negotiating explicit and implicit boundaries surrounding racial and cultural expectations and stereotypes. The article also explores America’s immigration policies and history of racial exclusion, and how these historical realities impacted her family narrative and American identity. The author contemplates how her childhood experience of inclusion and exclusion continues to shape her perception of racial and cultural otherness.