Jack McManus ’21
Spring 2021
Andrea’s story of coming to the United States has several unique wrinkles. Originally born in Hong Kong, she lived in several countries before her family’s move to Honolulu, Hawaii when she was 14. Andrea’s father had just retired, and he “had always had the intention for me and my brother to go to college or university in the United States, or just not home.” He saw an opportunity in retirement: the chance to acclimate his two children to the American education system before they were college-aged (not to mention living closer to his aunt, who was already located in Honolulu).
Having gone to international schools in several countries, Andrea was used to having fairly worldly peers. She was shocked, therefore, at the reaction she got when asked where she was from: “I said, ‘I’m from Hong Kong,’ and someone was like,’ Where is that?'” Nevertheless, she had no trouble making friends. Hawaii is a unique part of the United States in many ways, including its predominant Asian population. Andrea calls it a “melting pot of so many different Asian Americans,” echoing the language with which the United States as a whole is painted. She notes that this was actually a change for her: “Most of my inner circle back, you know, when I was in Hawaii, was Asian American. And like, there was only a handful of people who weren’t. And I think that was really interesting, because… I grew up in Beijing. And I grew up in an international school and an international community. And I always joked that, like, I grew up in a country where I was the majority, but like, my everyday life, I was sort of the minority.” She says that she actually saw more of herself reflected in the people around her living in Hawaii than she had for most of her childhood.
What seems to have greatly shaped Andrea’s experience in the United States is her ability to “pass” as an American. In Hawaii, where people of Asian descent are the majority, no one has any reason to assume she is from anywhere else. Even now that she is going to college in Boston, Massachusetts, however, she still is met with some surprise when she says that she is from Hong Kong. A frequent response is a compliment of her ability to speak English: having gone to international schools, she learned the language from a young age and speaks it fluently. She does not take kindly to these comments, however: “I always take that as a backhanded compliment, because it’s like… why does how I speak English determine my level of capability… And it never really sat well with me when someone said that, like, ‘oh, you have no accent.’ And they seem so surprised and, like, willing to have a conversation with me after I opened my mouth.”
Though she is frequently mistaken for one, Andrea says that she does not feel like one. She is currently here on a student visa, and would like to one day become a citizen if possible. However, even then she does not think she will completely feel American: “I think a part of me will always know that I was never, like, born and raised American. And I think for me, that’s what it that’s what it means, you know, where are you from? Where are your roots where are your family? I think my roots are not here. My roots are somewhere else. But that’s not to say that like the time that I’ve spent in this country hasn’t shaped who I am. It definitely has. But I don’t think that I will ever be fully only American, you know, that my identity is very much shaped by the fact that I am a lot of different things.”
They’ll be like, ‘your English is so good.’ And I always… take that as a backhanded compliment.