identity

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I Hate my Body Because I am Asian.

The only thing I remember that I wanted to be growing up, was to be white.

When we pretended to be our favorite characters, for some reason, I always wanted to choose the white girl with blue eyes in whatever girl group, even if there was an Asian passing girl in the group. I especially remember wanting to be Cloe from Bratz instead of Jade or Bloom from Winx Club instead of Musa. For two Halloweens straight, I was proudly Hannah Montana in my cheap blonde wig. I just wanted to be the extraordinary pretty blonde, fair girl. But I was a Filipino with dark brown hair and eyes and tan skin, born and raised here in America. 

Pictured is the infamous girl group the Winx Club. The fairies in order pictured together are Aisha, Musa, Stella, Bloom, Flora, and Tecna.
Winx Club characters together: Aisha, Musa, Stella, Bloom, Flora, and Tecna
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What’s in a Name?

Image description: A white sheet of paper with the words "Sign here" followed by a dotted line. A tip of a pen hovers over the line.

Names, everyone has one (or several), and a name is used in everyday occurrences. You see your friend walking down the hall, you excitedly yell their name and embarrass or startle them, you see your pet eating something they shouldn’t, you shout their name and chase after them, you get the idea. A lot of people never really think much about their name, it’s their name, their parents gave it to them, case closed, but the issue of names comes up when one’s gender identity is brought to the forefront of their thoughts. As I try to untangle my own understanding of my gender identity, my name becomes an issue.

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The internet, identity, and the body

There are so many selves we create in order to live our lives easily: as a child, as a sibling, as a student, as a friend, as an employee… When I was younger, I struggled with understanding who I am and what it meant to be me. Teenhood was complicated, as I know it is for almost everyone, but for me this was compounded by my introduction to the internet. 

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Queer Identity Discovery: The Domino Effect and Queer Time

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Image Source: http://www.avclub.com/article/theres-mash-rainbow-road-themes-all-8-mario-karts-206528

I’ll focus on my own experience here but I know there are going to be things about my experience that many other queer people can relate to in this regard.

My experience with queerness has never been linear, it has indeed been very queered. It has consistently involved not knowing about a way of being queer and then being introduced to the concept, a moment of reflection and then realizing “oh shit that’s me.” But I’ve also consistently struggled with coming to terms with these new labels and seeing how they fit me.

From the age of 12 to about a month away from turning 21 I had been on a journey of denial, internalization, grief over myself changing and growing, complete secrecy, exploration, etc. etc. about me being bi. I had come out after years of being afraid of myself, but in that time I also developed a yearning for community. When I came back to UMBC after two years of community college I knew that I’d want to seek out my community. Since then my reality as a queer person has shifted so greatly. I feel so liberated. Yet I grieve. I grieve for the ways I have been, not knowing if they are different than who I am now. My sense of self has been questioned. I don’t know if my new state of existing is just blurrier, or if things have just been just out of my sight this entire time and it constantly feels like both. I don’t know how consistent this person who is me is. Continue reading →

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Who am I? Is my body expressing who I am?

     After writing my paper on the argument of the body being a medium, it got me thinking about the question, ‘who am I?’.  In most cases, in order for the body to function as a medium of self-expression one need to know who they are in order to know what they are trying to express to others. So in order to express yourself, it is assumed that you know yourself. And of course this got me thinking about how would I answer the question “who am I”?

who-am-i     In my case the question ‘who are you?’ has to be one of the most difficult question for me to answer. Have you ever really looked at yourself and don’t know
really who you are? Like you know who you should be, what people (family, friends, etc,) expects you to be but apart from those expectations, you don’t know who you are? Continue reading →

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A Deep Fear of Sharing Online

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My internet persona, which does not acknowledge or talk about the issues that plague my true, physical self

Every time I have had to write a blog post for this class, I have ended up sitting in front of the computer for what feels like hours, thinking through all the different personal stories I could share. I find a lot of the posts on this blog fascinating because I could not imagine being so open about my life online. I am afraid of letting the world know that I have problems just like everybody else.

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Yes I Am Asian and Yes I Am Cambodian

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. Continue reading →

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Dodging Glances on the Train

So today we’re going to talk about my fun times with mental illness, since it’s the reason this blog post is late. Yay.

I didn’t plan on getting too personal for this blog; my list of topic ideas is mostly cultural critique. I’m sure I’ll come back to that list for later posts and even save some of them to put up on my own blog(s) eventually. Right now I need to process some meta before I can get back to doing the thing.

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