When I was young, I never really had an identity crisis. I identified as an Asian who is ethnically Cambodian. I grew up in a Cambodian household, was taught Cambodian traditions, and learned the language (Khmer). I knew who I was and I was proud of it. However as time passed, things changed very drastically for me.
If you were to ask someone to describe to you what a person of Asian descent looked like, you would probably get a very stereotyped answer. Answers usually contain things like “short, small eyes, black hair, pale, thin” etc. My very first issue with these answers is how it just assumes that an entire continent of people would then have the same features. My second issue is that it cuts out every other country that is not Eastern Asia. May I also add, not every Eastern Asian individual even fits the criteria of what a “typical” Asian looks like. These social constructions of appearances and the resulting assumptions and can be very damaging for a person.
In my personal life, I have been told that I am not really Asian because I simply to do not fit the criteria of what a “typical” Asian looks like. When I was younger, someone told my mom that there was something wrong with me because I had light brown hair. They asked her if she was giving me the “wrong” shampoo. Whatever that means. But so what if I have large eyes? So what if I happen to be 5’6’’? (Being 5’ 6’’ isn’t really even that tall!) Guess what? Not all people of a certain group will fit into an exclusive category that has been created. In addition, it’s not your position to tell me that I can’t identify as something simply from my “unconventional” looks.
Another situation that I run into more often is that I don’t look Cambodian enough. Just like every other country in the world, Cambodia is full of diverse people. Cambodian people however, are always pigeon holed with one specific trait, being tan. Ever since I was born, I have always been on the lighter side and this has greatly affected how people (both Cambodian and non-Cambodian) interact with me. If I ever wore a traditional Cambodian dress, people will sometimes assume that I was the “American” friend of a Cambodian person (this actually happened to me 2 years ago at a Cambodian New Year’s festival). People also get very surprised when I speak Khmer. Situations like these confuse and irritate me, as I feel like I am not allowed to belong to my own community just because of how I look. However, I am still proud of who I am and I am always eager to learn more about where I come from.
Unruly Bodies 
I get what it’s like to feel out of place in your own culture! I get your grief about what it feels like to have people in your own culture tell you that you don’t look “x enough” (whatever that means) but it seems weirder to me when people outside of our individual cultures feel the need to mention that we don’t look like the stereotypes they have imagined for us in their heads. I get a lot of shit in America for not looking “like a real Egyptian” and I’ve always wondered what people think Egyptians look like? What we’ve been looking like for centuries (which by the way…hasn’t really changed at all). I don’t know, but I definitely do relate with your situation.
It use to bother me a lot to see how people ignorantly catorgised us or stereotyped us into these narrow and pre convinced notions of our cultures, but to me, at the end of the day: I know my culture, my language, where I’m from. I don’t need people to validate that for me.
It’s difficult when you don’t fit into a strict criteria of what a certain ethnic group looks like, as if there is no human variation to what people can look like! And it’s bad enough when others disbelieve your identity, but it’s also disappointing when they’re from your own ethnic group.
I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with that, and thank you for sharing your story! So long as you know who you are, that’s all that really matters at the end.