My nationality is American: I was born in Tampa at St. Joseph’s Hospital South, to be specific. I speak English and eat cheese with my burgers and ketchup with my fries. I stand and place my right hand over my heart to the same song and flag as anybody else. I even pray to the same God and practice the same religion as the majority of other students at Notre Dame do.
On the other hand, racially I am Asian, ethnically Vietnamese. Growing up in Tampa, I was exposed to a mixture of white, African American and Hispanic peoples and cultures. My parents chose not to teach me Vietnamese; we neither practiced any Vietnamese traditions nor engaged with the small Vietnamese community in Tampa. They taught me English and spoke to me in English only. And so, from a young age, by just pure inertia, I became attached to the behaviors and customs of my peers around me. I learned more about barbecue, country music and the NFL before I even realized I was Vietnamese.
Coming to Notre Dame, the diversity was a culture shock for me. My graduating high school class of 200 had two Vietnamese students, both of whose last names were Tran. I was well aware of my ignorance of my own culture and strove to make that change, so I immediately joined the Vietnamese Student Association, a small community of Vietnamese people at Notre Dame. I made friends, great ones. I danced (or at least attempted to) and performed in cultural showcases. I became the president of the club and later directed those showcases.
Looking back on my four years with VSA and the Asian community at ND, I am incredibly thankful for the wonderful friendships and memories I’ve made. Engagement with other Asian students will be one of the top highlights of my time at ND. But at the same time, I know and have come to accept that I am an outsider. People in the community (my friends included) hold prejudices against me for not being “Vietnamese enough.” They taunt, criticize and at times blame me for not knowing how to speak Vietnamese, as if they themselves mastered the Vietnamese and English languages while they couldn’t even change their own diapers. One memorable remark was: “Jonah, I think you’re about 70% white and 30% Vietnamese.” I’ve been told that no Vietnamese woman would want to marry me because I’m too white. For four full years, I have dodged conversations in Vietnamese and when I couldn’t, I repeated my same bashful excuse that my parents just never taught me. The furrowed eyebrows always respond the same.
On the other hand, I have made amazing friendships with white or non-Asian people. We share hobbies, preferences, high school experiences, values and even the same God. However, I realize that I do not fit into the Midwestern, white, Catholic, Notre Dame student paradigm. I am an outsider, and nobody is slow to let me know that either. Slurs and “jokes” about samurai, sushi, gochujang, ramen, Asian flush and China are usual, though none of them apply to me, I would like to think. I just smile through it and shake it off. To white people, I realize that I am their token Asian friend, a personal “exotic” pet onto whom they can offload all their distrust and condemnation of anything that isn’t American or European.
I live a double life: half white and half Vietnamese. Half my friends are white, the other Asian. Half the food I eat is American, the other Asian. Half the extracurricular activities I do are with white people, the other with Asians. I know better than to mix these groups or share experiences from one community with the other. However, this 50-50 split is the best that I have been able to do. I’ll never be Asian or Vietnamese enough to be fully accepted in the Asian/Vietnamese community. I’ll never be white enough to be fully accepted in the white community. And so, I bear the negative views against me so long as I can belong to a community.
I will admit that this is not what ND admissions or any ND office wants to hear from a student because the lived realities of Asian American students do not correspond to what the fancily written text reads on a brochure or website. Community is the most important word starting with “C” to Notre Dame, and it would be a hard pill for them to swallow that their utopic vision of community isn’t so utopian. Moreover, I hold absolutely no resentment toward any friends, acquaintances or peers, who, though they have disappointed me in the past, inspired me to articulate my thoughts into this reflection. I know that God works through people and experiences, even though they may be uncomfortable.
My four years at ND have been spent attempting to reconcile my own cultural ambiguities and to promote dialogue and unity between the Asian community and the broader non-Asian community. Each community has its problems; they are composed of humans at the end of the day. I believe in and hope for a diversity at Notre Dame that is beautiful, transcendent and reflective of the many aspects and qualities of God. Diversity can and should be a beautiful thing, but, admittedly, it can be ugly at times. Moreover, I know that the Asian American experience at Notre Dame has so much potential and so much more to offer. I know that my experience is not uncommon: To varying degrees other Asian students at Notre Dame have similar struggles and experiences. I am only one person to articulate his experience at Notre Dame, and I hope and pray that more will too.
If I am not white enough for white people, and if I am not Asian enough for Asian people, then what am I? I don’t have a good answer, yet.