I was having a fun afternoon shopping with my mom and little sister. That is, until some guy in the aisle of the store looked at us strangely, and then not at all hesitantly said to me, “Your daughter is so cute!” My mom was standing awkwardly behind me. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I just kept walking. I was fifteen and Maya was nine. No wonder he felt confused. But on the other hand, he figured I must be Maya’s mother because Maya was Chinese and so was I. That older woman with us obviously wasn’t the mom, she was white.

My name is Lia and I was adopted from China. Yes, that’s the other side of the world, but that’s a cool thing…it makes me different, different on the inside and out. In this community, the people I interact with both in my school life and my home life, the majority of the kids and families are white. Being Chinese is unusual and makes me stand out. I’m not a tall, long-legged, big-eyed blonde or brunette. I am short, with straight black hair and almond-shaped eyes. I like my teachers and classes and I have a lot of friends at school, some are even my best friends. Like I said before, I am a minority at my school, and a minority in my community, which makes me feel cool and unique. Except when it doesn’t.

My friends are curious about me being adopted, which makes me feel uncomfortable. At school when everyone talks about where they get their eyes, nose, or smile from, either their mom’s side or dad’s, I can’t really join in on that conversation because I have no idea. Or they’ll say, hey which hospital were you born in, or did you inherit your athletic talents, or why is it your sister doesn’t look like you? I usually answer, “Haha, I don’t know, I am adopted.” But then people will just start asking me questions, like why did your parents abandon you, who found you, and so on. In the beginning it’s nice when they ask me questions, it feels like they’re interested in me and my unusual story…but behind that, I sense that they feel bad for me. Their comments often include the word “real,” like is that your real sister, or where are your real parents? But I never turn around and say why are you asking these questions? Is it because you are really interested or is it because you feel sorry for me? It’s easier to change the subject or just walk away and act like it’s nothing.

Sometimes my friends make racist jokes that make me feel awkward. They call me “my little Asian” and things like that. Mostly I just go with it, but sometimes I get mad. And sometimes they have racist assumptions, like they expect me to be good at science and math. I let it pass because they are my friends. I go along with it and sometimes I even make another racist joke about myself, but why? Because I want to fit in with the others. I say I want to be different, because I am, but sometimes I just want to fit in and be like everyone else. I am against this type of comment, but I don’t confront it yet. Because usually they make jokes and give me a hug saying they were joking. They already know it’s wrong, so sometimes I think what’s the point of confronting. Writing this essay makes me realize why I don’t speak out when they make me uncomfortable. It’s because I just want to get along. To fit in.

But where do I really fit in? I am opposed to making assumptions about people based on surface appearances. These assumptions can make it too hard for people to show who they really are. People expect you to think a certain way based on your race or culture, but this is not true, for me anyway. Recently I went to an all-day leadership conference for Asian American high school students, at Columbia University. I was looking forward to the conference as a chance to discuss culture, stereotypes, and feelings. Also, I wanted to just “be Asian” without being self-conscious about it, and meet other people who are similar to me. I went to three different workshops that day. The topics were Asian History, tiger parents, and sexuality. The point of each workshop was to learn and understand more about who you are and what you feel. But when I got to the workshop on tiger parents, I discovered that I couldn’t relate to the other kids. They were discussing their feelings about how their parents want them to live their lives—they are expected to be good at math and science, play an instrument, and gett into an Ivy League college, and they felt under a lot of pressure. These kids all had parents who were Asian, and tiger parenting is a part of their culture. They assumed that because I’m an Asian American, I would be able to relate to the pressure of having tiger parents, but actually I’d never heard the term until that day. Their parents are Asian, and their culture is Asian, but my parents are white and they don’t expect me to be great in math or science or play an instrument. To be honest, math is my least favorite subject and science is hard for me. Also I don’t play an instrument, I sing. My parents want me to live my life and they don’t have all these strict expectations. In the sexuality workshop, all the girls were talking about how their parents expect them to keep the “tradition” of getting married and having kids, and said if they told their parents that they were gay, they’d be kicked out of the house. Once again, my parents would never do that. Over the course of the day, I realized that there is a gap between the way I’ve been raised and the way Asian Americans with Asian parents are being raised. While we might look the same on the outside, I don’t feel the same way they do on the inside, because of the way I’ve been raised. It was hard for me to accept, but I didn’t fit in. I wasn’t a “real” Asian.

Two years ago, I joined a discussion group of Chinese adoptees with learning issues preparing to go to college. We are five girls who meet once a month with a counselor and have pizza and just talk about our lives. People who know me from school where I have a lot of trouble raising my hand and participating in class would be surprised to learn that in this group I am the person who talks the most. I am comfortable with those kids. Like me, they are Asian but with white parents. I don’t have to explain to them how that makes me feel. We all have to deal with racism and feelings about being adopted, but we also are just regular high school kids who want to go to the prom and do well on the SATs and get good grades and wear the latest skinny jeans and that is what we mostly talk about.

But in my larger community, I still have to confront the issue of where I belong. Wanting to fit in doesn’t play an easy role. In a way I am stuck in between two models of how I’m supposed to act. I’m seen as Asian by my white friends, and by the average person on the street. But I am not really part of that culture. Yet I’m not white either. I’m “in between.” In fact, recently I saw a documentary about four teenage Chinese adoptees and its title is Somewhere Between. I really loved it and bought the DVD to watch again. I can relate because the kids in the documentary also talk about where do they really belong.

I may be Asian but that doesn’t mean I’m smart or can speak Chinese. It is wrong to judge people by their appearance. The real person is on the inside, not the outside.