Mixed Kid

THE YEAR IS 2000,

It’s the end of April,

And after 45 minutes of labor, my mother holds me for the first time on the bathroom floor of our home, I didn’t give her enough time to make it to the hospital.

Skin colored different hues but with the same matching yellow tinge, and almond eyes. Mother and son, together, unaware of what would come with the tides.

THE YEAR IS 2004,

A U.S. Air Force helicopter falls from the sky, explodes against the science building at Okinawa International University,

Scattering rubble into the surrounding urban neighborhoods.

The area is shut down by U.S. soldiers. Local authorities are denied entry to the crash site.

THE YEAR IS 2008,

And here in America, the Walmart cashier questions whether or not I’m my father’s son.

She stares wide-eyed in disbelief, as my dad proudly proclaims that my mother is Japanese.

And then I see it click in her head, the almost jet black hair, the almost yellow skin, the almond-shaped eyes, the near-monolid.

Suddenly, it all makes sense. Now, she has been shown the appropriate box(es) to checkmark in pen, now she knows which box(es) to cram my child body in.

THE YEAR IS 2009,

I tell my white father that I want to learn more about my Japanese roots.

He tells me I have no roots, explains that background is based on socialization,

And since he’s white, since his mother is white, since our community is white, I am therefore white.

Not mixed, just white. As if my mother wasn’t a woman of Indigenous Luchuan blood with jet black hair, skin the color of earth, and almond shaped eyes...

THE YEAR IS 2010,

And in the school cafeteria, the Black kid in my 5th grade class calls me a “cracker”, the Hispanic kid calls me a “chink”.

This is the moment I realize that as a half-white, ethnically ambiguous person in America, there is nowhere to belong, or to blend in.

There is no adequate representation.

This is the moment I realize that I am the inheritor of my white fathers guilt, but not his privilege, and that I’ll never have the chance to grow up to become either one of my parents.

THE YEAR IS 2011,

And in a flawed search for identity, I pretend to be personally affected by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in the Tohoku region,

When today, I know damn well that none of my Shimanchu ancestors ever made it further north than Kyushu Island.

THE YEAR IS 2012,

Gangnam Style takes the number one spot on YouTube’s Top 100 Music Videos.

My mother starts watching Korean dramas on Netflix, she experiments with the identity of herself and her children.

She rebrands herself to white America as ‘half-Japanese/half-Korean’, and my quest to understand my own roots falls further out of reach.

THE YEAR IS 2016,

My Indigenous elders back home are beaten down by Japanese police during a political rally,

Protesting the construction of a new U.S. base to be built at Henoko Bay, inside of the sea.

THE YEAR IS 2018,

The white girl in my English-102 class at the community college says “omigosh no way, I can’t believe you’re Japanese!

“Let me tell you about my brothers karate teacher, and all my favorite animes I’ve ever seen!”

THE YEAR IS 2019,

And PFOS/PFOA chemicals, the same substances found at Red Hill, are leaked by the U.S. military into the Chatan Water Treatment Plant.

One-third of Okinawa Island is deprived of clean drinking water, yet, there are no major news headlines.

THE YEAR IS 2020,

And for the first time, I confidently say “No, I’m actually not Japanese.

Let me tell you about my identity, and the Yaimapitü tribe, and a language from southern Okinawa called ‘Yaimamuni’”.

THE YEAR IS 2021,

And the Japanese politicians on my twitter feed say that “there is no such thing as indigenous Okinawan (Luchuan) identity.”

THE YEAR IS 2022,

During a team-building day at work, My coworker asks an icebreaker question.

He says:

“If you could go anywhere in time, past, present, or future, where would you choose?”

My tongue turns to stone as I debate telling the truth.

How do I answer his question,

When yesterday my culture was illegal,

Today my culture is endangered,

And tomorrow, will my culture be extinct?

THE YEAR IS 2023,

And I hope to see my roots grow like gajumaru trees. I hope to no longer be caught between empires, written in italics.

I hope to no longer be a a remnant of a forgotten past, a survivor, a traitor, inheritor/thieve to a white-supremacist, “yellow-fever” fetishist bloodline, a haafu, a fractured family tree.

My mixed-race Asian, Indigenous, Diasporic identity was handed down to me already deconstructed, neatly summarized as “half-breed hybrid” for my Great Aunt Joyce, who finds my ethnic background too difficult to wrap her head around.

My body is a border representing every intersection. I am rendered disposable by my borders, half-ignorant-shameful-white man, half-invisible/Indigenous.

THE YEAR IS 2050,

And according to UNESCO predictions, My tribal language has just died.

I am no longer caught between empires, no longer written in italics, but rather, completely erased from the page.

I am a remnant of a forgotten past.

I am a survivor,

a traitor,

a thief,

an inheritor,

a border,

an intersection,

invisible,

disposable.

I am also Indigenous,

Invincible,

Adaptable,

A culture-keeper,

A role model,

A product of the Earth,

An ancestor in the making.

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