Being an Asian foreigner in Seattle, it is challenging to be aware of my own assumptions, values and biases. The mainstream tends to think that someone like me should be passive or perhaps less articulate. Struggling to find my identity in this society has made me wonder what my cultural identity is. The ironic part is the further I move away from my native country to the United States, the closer I am to finding my cultural heritage. Often times, I am caught between both sides; trying to assimilate to be part of the melting pot has left my own community thinking that I am not retaining my roots. On the other hand, if I were not to conform to social changes, I will be accused of not being able to adapt. It is never a win-win situation, but I guess that is because I am on the crossroads of both Eastern and Western cultures. I just want to be accepted as who I am. Personally, I feel that if an individual is really committed to a rigorous respect for difference, whether in terms of cultural identity or political options, then difference is not an optional extra. In political and practical terms, diversity costs. Yet for me as a hybrid of both east and west whose culture is not completely mainstream has encountered the feeling that if I want to be different in any way, I may be a nuisance. While adapting to cope with my cultural identity, there is an absence of a dynamic of creative confrontation, of the dialectical process through which ideas are opposed to one another and something new and creative emerges in the interactive process that this entails. I am aware that I can reclaim or retain my cultural identity from the far right if I emphasize the diversity of my own origins, not its alleged unitary nature. I think that a truly transformed cultural identity should celebrate all cultures, including the dominant one, within an agreed, common, rights-based framework. Minorities within the dominant culture who feel ourselves to be excluded can join forces with other minority cultures. All of this will require meaningful power-sharing, across classes as well as across communities. This means, paradoxically, that I must be more willing to empower and support my own critics on the margins, creating in the process a self where different cultural identities and also profound differences of view are acceptable. But can I truly be me? Using Shakespeare’s famous line, “To Thine ownself be true,” suggests that an individual only has a single self to which he or she can be truthful. But can we be totally truthful to ourselves, and the people around us? Like everything else, there is no definite answer, simply because the truth is somewhere in between, just like half and half :-)
