stepping into change

The view from Jupiter's Boulder.

Change.

It is perhaps the single commonality certain to be shared by the trajectories of our vastly different lives. Sometimes it is scary, sometimes it is good, and sometimes it is both. Always, it is the force that keeps our lives moving ever-forward.

A surefire bout of it awaits me in less than two weeks. Nine days from now will mark the first time in my life that everything around me will change so suddenly and so drastically. A number of people have told me that I’m about to enter the best 4 years of my life. Well, no pressure there.

It’s been a strange and reflective summer, that’s for sure. About halfway through July it truly dawned on me that this summer might be the last I’d ever spend in Cornwall. The last time in my life that I’d spend such a long stretch of peaceful days in my childhood home.

When you live somewhere for the first 18 years of your life, that place inevitably shapes you, from the geography to the school to the culture to the people. My ties to this town are forever, for all of the good and bad, for every person I have met, whether I fell in love with them or knew them only in passing.

Moving to Harvard will inevitably require, and, quite frankly, has already required, a major shift in my perspective of my identity and my privilege.

I was born in America and have lived in Cornwall— a small, mostly white, largely middle-to-upper-middle class town— for pretty much my whole life, but I have grown up unconsciously finding ways to “assimilate” at all times. It is perhaps an explanation for why I was so quiet as a young child and at times continue to be, ears perked and eyes alert, carefully taking note of what those around me are doing. Every motion is hesitantly calculated for fear of misstep. How are these people holding their knives and forks? How do they eat their dinners? What music do they listen to? How do they sign up and get involved with sports? Why is their parent-child dynamic so different from mine? Observation and imitation are arts I have mastered.

Over time, I began to cling to my Chinese-ness as an excuse for my identity. Being older and more mature now, I’m able to recognize why and how this happened, and the fact that it even happened in the first place.

When the people around you, especially those you have come to respect, fail to condemn the president for his racist rhetoric, you cannot help but wonder: do they look at me differently? When the local newspaper fails to include nothing more than a couple of misquoted lines about the high school’s valedictorian and salutatorian, who for the first time in at least a very long time are both young women of color, despite having done full interviews with the valedictorians and salutatorians for that same very long time, you cannot help but wonder: do they look at me differently? It’s never angering for more than a minute or two, only disappointing and a little bit heartbreaking. Greater than that are the moments when there is no wondering; you merely see that uncomfortable, disdainful look in someone’s eyes, however brief, and you know they are looking at you differently. As a foreigner. Those moments have an unfortunately lasting impact on a young child who is unfortunately observant.

So I embraced being Chinese. It seemed to be something that very obviously differentiated me from everyone else around me; I didn’t even have to try. It became an easy way to make jokes— it’s better when you can laugh at yourself, right? It became an explanation for my success, the reason why I was so good at math or piano. It was a convenient conflation of humility with failing to take ownership of my successes and hard work.

I think, in retrospect, that embrace was, in many ways, closely tied to a rejection, and I hardly realized it. I resented the way I looked, wondering if people could ever truly find my non-Western face beautiful. I resented my family life, longing for the structure and parent involvement that every white family seemed to offer. I resented the stereotypes that boxed me in to this singular label. I was smart, played the piano and violin, and got into a top school, just like thousands of other Chinese kids out there. Nothing more than the expectation of being Asian. But it was all fine, because here in Cornwall, I was the only one. Easy to ignore and emphasize all at once.

At Harvard, though, over 20% of the students are Asian. Being Chinese will no longer differentiate me. Don’t get me wrong; I am so unbelievably proud and grateful to be Chinese, and I will always celebrate my culture and this part of my identity. But I don’t want to let it define and justify who I am anymore. It is time to take ownership of my character and my successes. I am far more than the color of my skin, and I have to be the first one to start really believing it. Even if it means giving myself time to figure out who I am beyond stereotypes.

Now, I want to acknowledge three important facts here. First of all, my experience as an East Asian person of color is assuredly very different from that of black, Hispanic, or other people of color. Secondly, I have been extremely fortunate genetically, meaning it’s been easy enough to live by the unspoken rule: command respect through intelligence and leadership until there is no room for passive racism. Finally, I’ve lived in a home that has always been financially stable; my parents and grandparents did the hard work of escaping the bonds of systemic poverty so I would never have to.

Each of these facts carries its own kind of immense privilege. I will be taking these privileges with me to Harvard, and the fact that I’m going to attend this institution, whose name alone carries so much weight, is another huge privilege in and of itself. I’ve had this fact bitterly thrown back in my face by some of my peers at Cornwall, who feel I am moving on to something greater while they are left behind. At the same time, I am also going to meet a ton of people who have far more privilege than me, so much so that I may lose sight of just how privileged I am.

Regardless, the next question becomes: what do we do with this cognizance of our privilege? The answer, in my opinion, is to act on our social responsibility. To use our voices and speak into that megaphone that has been handed to us.

I want to give credit to the summer program I am involved with through Harvard, called Service Starts with Summer, which has spurred many of my thoughts about the heightened importance of our social responsibility as Harvard students and about using the opportunities we have to drive change where it is needed.

When I move to college soon, things around me will change naturally and inevitably, but it is most important that I choose to step into change too. I may be scared, and I will struggle. But I accept the discomfort, the anxiety, and the fear, because there is another commonality in our trajectories we share, if we choose to accept.

Growth.