Chinese-American, but Neither Chinese nor American

In my first few weeks of college, I ran for Chinese Student Association freshman representative. And no, I did not win. Thanks for asking, though.

As the race got underway, I asked myself many questions about why I was running—mostly because I had to write a candidacy statement explaining why I wanted to run. In doing so, I realized how complicated my relationship with my heritage is.

My father has been exiled from China. Sounds pretty bad right? “What did he do?” some people ask me, horrified. “He must’ve done something terrible!”

I suppose he has, if you consider supporting democracy and free speech a crime, which evidently the Chinese government does. My father was an activist in the Beijing Democracy Wall Movement in 1979 and he was the former president of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy. Now he lives in America, but he continues to write pro-democracy material. My mother and I are free to travel to China to visit relatives, but he is not.

Unsurprisingly, this makes my relationship with my heritage a little awkward, a little uneasy. This discomfort comes up anytime I am confronted with my racial identity—naturally, when I was running for CSA, but also in the most unexpected of times.

A while ago, I stumbled upon the trailer of “21 and Over.” Much to my surprise, the protagonist was an Asian male. It was somewhat astonishing to me that an Asian person would be playing the lead role in a movie—particularly one containing no martial arts. I was able to clear up this mystery after a few Google searches: The producers of the film wanted to expand into the much-coveted but elusive niche of moviegoers in China. Many things are censored in China—dangerous, threatening, potentially revolutionary things—including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. After many years of trying to force their movies into China and getting them censored or banned over and over again by the government, Hollywood producers have finally learned. This is why, in America, viewers will be seeing “21 and Over” as a funny, albeit coarse, depiction of what happens when an Asian-American college student’s 21st birthday lands on the day before an important medical school interview. In China, viewers will be seeing a movie about a transfer student from China who is briefly exposed to the hedonistic West’s ways before returning home as a reformed individual who embraces his roots.

Yes, Hollywood will shoot two separate movies—one for China, and one for the rest of the world.

I find this deeply troubling. For my family, and for many families, America is the bastion of freedom. That’s why my parents moved here, and that’s why my father is continuing his work in this country. Freedom of speech is particularly important for my family, given that my father has been exiled for exercising this right in a country that does not recognize it as such.

The fact that Hollywood is censoring itself and effectively relinquishing its freedom of speech—a freedom that most Americans take for granted—to placate the Chinese government says a lot about what it’s willing to give up. But I don’t think anything is worth giving up freedom of speech. It is an unalienable right that can’t just be granted or taken away depending on the situation.

This, then, is the source of my dichotomy. On the one hand, I am Chinese, raised in a Chinese household, and that is undeniably a huge part of my identity. But on the other hand, I am American. I was born in this country, educated in this country, and I believe in the core values that make up the foundation of this nation—democracy and free speech. I may be Chinese ethnically, but at heart I consider myself American.

And yet to identify myself as purely American would also be wrong. Time and time again, I am reminded that, no matter how “American” I think I am, I am not quite there. It doesn’t matter that I was born in this country, that English was my first language, that I was educated in the American school system. Strangers walking down the street call me “dirty commie,” criticize me for not knowing how to act “in this country,” and, again and again, implore me to “go back to where I came from.”

I am Chinese-American, but I cannot fully embrace both aspects of my identity at the same time. I have to choose one or the other. Perhaps I should feel greater loyalty to my country of origin, where I suppose I would more fully “belong.” (Surely, no one would tell me to “go back to where I came from” in China.) But I cannot support a society that denies people the right to express themselves, and I would much rather live in a society where the freedom of speech is not just a privilege, but a right—even though I may never be seen as a true member of this society. It’s a trade-off, but at least it is one that I have the freedom to make.

Nian Hu ’18, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Greenough Hall.