My passport Anonymous

In 3rd grade, I used to carry a copy of my passport to school. My after-school program teacher once asked me where I was from. “The US,” I replied. She dismissed my answer, insisting “Where are you really from?” Tired of the constant dismissal and different variations of "You don’t look American, you're Chinese," 7-year-old me concluded that making a copy of my passport and taking it to school was the best course of action. After all, I believed that I wasn’t authentically Chinese because, despite my features, I wasn’t born in China and had never lived in China.

My life started in Queens, NY, as the first child of a Chinese marriage. After my birth, my family moved to Ecuador, where I remained for the next 5 years. There, I took my first steps, made my first friends, and learned my second language—Spanish. Searching for a better future, we moved to the Dominican Republic.

In my first years in the DR, I struggled with my cultural identity—I was physically and ethnically Chinese, I was born in the US, had spent the entirety of my life in Ecuador, and now lived in the DR. I denied my Chinese identity, favoring my American passport and Dominican citizenship. In a grade where I was the only Chinese-looking girl, I felt the need to ...