The Promise I Believe

This week was a week of victory for many. A week of relief. Of celebration. Of hope.

For some of us, it was a week of reflection and contemplation. Many of us believed in an America that wasn't - a mirage of unrealized hope and unfilled promises. These past years taught us what America was, and yet, this week offered glimpses of hope. And amidst these glimpses of hope - the celebration of democracy, of America - we ask ourselves what America can be to us.

In The Accidental Asian, Eric Liu, a second generation Chinese American, shares his story of identity, culture, and assimilation. He writes about his journey growing up in a suburban community, going to school in majority white settings, working at the highest levels of our country's government - and through it all, tries to understand how his identity has been shaped by each of those experiences. And on a week when we're constantly reminded of the promise of America, I ask myself whether I believe in that promise, and where within that promise I fit.

I am a first generation immigrant. I yearned for years to call myself an American. I always believed that America promised something that few other places could: the freedom of a people - all its people - to determine their own destiny. I always believed in an America of immigrants: where, if most of us are immigrants in some way, we bring with us unique cultures and stories. And when those cultures connect, thus weaves together the beautiful tapestry that is America. 

The promise of America, therefore, is every American's ability to be themselves and define their own future, to celebrate what makes them unique, joined by a love for these United States. As we hear often: "This land is my land, this land is your land... this land is made for you and me."

But is it, really?

The past few years taught me that this promise, to this day, is not fulfilled for the majority of Americans. They taught me that this promise was never intended to be fulfilled for most. It was reserved for a few - only if you were white. It's not a new reality; for me, however, it was a new lesson.

Was this land made for me if my people have had to realize, over generations, that the path to acceptance in this country was by striving for whiteness? And if we do so, do we still truly enjoy the freedom to be ourselves and define our future? Or are we now only a mirage of ourselves, shaped by who we have sought to be, rather than who we were raised to be? And if we have the audacity to defend our history, our culture, our identities, against the pressures of whiteness, is the promise of America still a promise available to us?

In my yearning to be American, both legally and culturally, I believed that to be accepted - to become truly American - was to strive for whiteness. It wasn't to become white, but to be accepted so.

"I do not want to be white. I only want to be integrated. When I identify with white people who wield economic and political power, it is not for their whiteness but for their power. When I imagine myself among white people who influence the currents for our culture, it is not for their whiteness but for their influence. When I emulate white people who are at ease with the world, it is not for their whiteness but for their ease." - Eric Liu

In the process of striving for whiteness, I've accepted a vision of America centered on whiteness. I accepted that in order to progress in the workplace, I had to adopt to white norms of practice. I accepted that in order to gain cultural acceptance, I had to celebrate the things that seemed most "American;" of course, defined by our white majority.

But that also meant accepting how a country, shaped by its white majority, defines those in its racial minority. Accepting an America centered on whiteness means I have internalized the inferiority of people that are not white. I have internalized a hierarchy within which I am not an equal - and neither are millions of others. Accepting this reality means I have made it even harder for my Black and brown brothers and sisters who do not share my privilege in being perceived as "whiter" than them, and thus, perhaps less of a threat to whiteness. Accepting this reality means my striving for whiteness has contributed to others being celebrated only for their position in this whitewashed world, rather than who they are.

And I've realized that my striving for whiteness doesn't only impact the other communities of color around our country. It impacts my own community - my own people that have fought for me. It is exemplified in the contradiction of consuming my own culture while ignoring the consequences for my own community - through visiting Chinatowns for food and discounted goods, brushing aside the reality that many of my people live in abject poverty in those very streets. Where Chinatowns provide the opportunity for ownership, for political and economic sovereignty, my white-centered world has relegated it to a place of cultural extraction and exploitation. 

Moreover, it ignores the reality that all around me, comrades who fought alongside my people in a pan-Asian movement for justice continue to be subject to the colorism that pervades even our own community - driven by the zero-sum belief that one can gain acceptance in a white world by making someone else even less so. And it ignores that in our and our ancestors' homelands, people that have fought for our liberation thousands of miles away face oppression in ways beyond our understanding. But yet when we continue to see that another's loss is our own gain, we continue to be numb to our complicity in the suffering of our own people.

So this week, as we celebrated another chapter for our country, I've realized that my journey is not my own. My journey of assimilation does not only impact me; it is a communal journey because my acceptance of whiteness means I allow it to be normalized as the core of our nation's identity. It means that I have not yet found freedom because my success is not rooted in what defines me and my people, but how the white world sees me. And so I still wonder - can I still realize the promise of America without letting America define me and my people?

I believe that is still possible. I believe in a nation of immigrants - a rare place in this world where the cultural majority is not the indigenous owner of its land. I believe in a nation that can truly be shaped by weaving together the cultures - all the cultures - that have contributed to its story. I believe in a nation where every human has the opportunity to shape their own future. I believe that this is the promise of America - that even if it has not yet been realized for most, we know it should be so. 

But I also know it will take hard work. I know that while striving for whiteness may seem like the easy path forward, it will not help us realize this promise. I know that the journey may get harder before it gets easier - that rejecting assimilation as a tool for self-preservation will create obstacles for our own advancement. And I know that I don't know what de-centering whiteness truly means, because it has been ingrained into every morsel of what I understand America to be.

But I know I just have to try.