Interview 008: Kristen C. Chuang

Kristen C. Chuang (she/her) is a marketing manager and designer in Brooklyn. We talked about growing up in very white spaces in Florida and Ohio and very Asian spaces in Singapore and Hong Kong, the impact of context on how people perceive her, pushing through the apprehension she feels in predominantly monoracial Asian spaces, and more.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Let's start at the beginning: When and where did you grow up, and what was it like for you to be multiracial Asian in this context?

I was born in Florida. My dad is from Singapore, and he’s the only one from his family that came to the States. He and my mom met in Florida and had me. I'm the youngest of a Cheaper-by-the-Dozen bunch where there's many marriages, many kids, all half-siblings. When I was nine, my dad had the opportunity to move us to Shanghai for work, so we lived there as expats for two and a half years. There was a brief period where my mom and I moved back to Florida, and then we moved to Hong Kong, where my dad had moved. We were there for two years, so essentially all of middle school was in Shanghai and Hong Kong, which was incredible.

When we were living in Shanghai and Hong Kong, Asian people would come up to me – they would touch my skin, touch my hair, make comments about how beautiful I was. So I experienced the nuances of Western culture being celebrated by Eastern culture. But for that half-year in Florida, I was put in a Christian private school in the middle of the year as a sixth grader coming from China. That was really tough – I don’t have positive memories of that time. It was a mixture of being the ambiguous-but-Asian kid coming from Asia and it being a really awkward time in life where I had giant glasses, I was wearing my retainer, I was in it all around. I think I had two friends, and we already knew we were leaving too. So that was a really challenging pop back to the States.

After Hong Kong, we moved to Columbus, Ohio. My parents wanted me to spend all of high school in the same place. I remember crying and asking if we were going to live on a farm. I was like, “Where is Ohio?” I didn't know anything about the Midwest. The international school experience in Asia was incredible – so diverse, and the education I received was incredible. We got to travel and do these really unique out-of-the-classroom programs. Then I end up in Ohio. I was one of two mixed Asians and five total Asians in my class, which was massive. So going from living in Asia, getting on the bus as a kid because it was so safe and hanging out with friends of all multicultural identities, to Columbus was really challenging.

That's wild. It sounds like you went from one end of the spectrum in terms of diversity to another and then back again. I'm curious what you remember about starting out in Florida, and then going to a context where you’re surrounded by Asian people and all kinds of people, and then back and forth.

I don't remember much from Florida or moving to Shanghai. My childhood was a little bit tumultuous – there was a lot going on in our family with my older half-siblings, so there's maybe a reason why I don't have a ton of memories from that time. But when we moved to Shanghai, it was just me and my parents. Since my dad is the only one that came to the States, my family was always divided -- there was always a whole half of my family on the other side of the world. Then our small unit moved to Asia and left the family in the States and the contact with them became minimal. So shifting which parts of the family I had access to has been a constant thing.

Coming to Ohio was a culture shock, moving to the city with the most diehard college football fans in the world. But that was not my world – I was not an athletic kid. I moved there and the first people I met were like, “Do you wanna come to the Friday night football game?” And I was like, “Do I? Is that normal?” I was used to getting on buses in a super-urban environment and a really different lifestyle. That's why context means a lot to me – you do what you can with the context you're in. My experience was constantly changing based on where I was.

Did you like doing high school in Ohio?

“Like” feels like a strong word. I don't know. My relationship with the Midwest is complicated – I was there until just over a year ago. It was Columbus, Cincinnati, Chicago, and then Bloomington, Indiana. And again, context – I didn't really have Asian friends. If I met other mixed people, it was always this grasping, like “Oh my gosh, you're like me.” My mixed friends and I acknowledge that there’s this special connection off the bat that you can see from across the room. It's up to you whether you're going to make that connection, but when it happens, it's this kindred thing. It was really challenging in that context, in the Midwest. When I did find other mixed friends or Asian friends, those connections were special, but they were few and far between.

That makes a lot of sense. I feel like we're getting into this already, but I'm curious what formative events shaped how you think about your multiracial identity.

Living in Asia during those super-formative years was absolutely solidifying. The formative moments were the ones where people would recognize me as Asian or not. Perception from the people looking at you plays such a large role in how you experience your own identity from day to day. I could interact with you right now and someone else on the street in an hour, and you both would perceive something different. The context when I'm in Ohio versus when I'm here in Brooklyn is so different, and the perception is different from every single person. One of the most interesting experiences is when people see you and they don't see what you want them to see. And then you’re like, “Well, I am whole parts of two different identities and cultures, and how do I express that?”

I was married for a time, and I gave up my last name. When you have an Asian last name, it's easier for people to make a connection. When I didn’t have that, there were times when people would try to make the new name Asian. Or they would recognize less often that I was Asian. My middle name is Chih-hua, so my full name is quite Asian. But I gave up my last name for a large chunk of my life, and it was interesting how people’s perception changed.

Every time you have to fill out your identity on a form, there's a little hit.  It's getting better, but it was not good for a long time, where you had to pick one and there was no option to say “two or more.” And it was always that question of, “Well, what do I pick?”

Moving to New York and living in Brooklyn, I knew I wasn’t going to be the only Asian in the room or the only mixed Asian in the room, and that is incredible. My Asian community here is large and growing. I love the experience of walking down the street, going to an event, meeting new people. And having mixed friends – it's not just the one person I found in this strange way.

Your reflections on the context shaping how you're experienced made me think about how certain colors look more green against a green background and more blue against a blue background – the context brings out certain shades or nuances. And I think about my own experience as a person of color – I sometimes feel like a litmus test because I elicit reactions from people that then I have to engage with. But that’s all the more true when your identity is ambiguous – you become this projective test, and then you have to manage people’s reactions to you. Context affects your interactions in such a tangible way and that has to be wild, because you have no idea what you're gonna get.

Yeah, it's true. And sometimes how you're perceived feels really good, and sometimes it feels horrible. A few recent examples: I was in Florida for a conference, and I'm sitting in a bar. This woman next to me, who I don't think was white, started a conversation. And at a point she stops and she goes, “I'm sorry, I have to ask. I can't place you – what is your makeup or where are you from?” She didn't even know how to ask it, but it's those moments where you're like, “Oh. I didn't realize we were quite getting to that. You're a stranger and we're talking about Miami and why I'm here.”

Yeah, I didn't realize that the way that I looked was stressing you out.

Yeah, like “I can't place you” – I didn't know you needed to. So that was one. I was going to a gala last year here in New York, and I hopped in the elevator with an Asian woman. She looked at me and she was like, “Are you half Asian?” And I was like, “Yes.” It's when Asian people see me that I’m more excited, because there’s this desire to be seen and accepted. And then she's like, “You don't look that Asian though.” And I was like, “Okay, wow.”

Wow, what a journey.

Yeah, that shifted quickly. I didn’t love that. And I recently visited Singapore and I was ordering juice at a juice stall. And as she's handing me the juice, the server looks at me perplexed and goes, “You look Chinese.” I was like, “Oh, I am. But half.” It's constant – people being confused about who you are. It's a strange thing to interact with on a regular basis.

Yeah. It sounds so jarring because even though it happens to you all the time, it happens in this range of ways and you're never fully prepared for what you’re going to get.

Your story about the woman in the elevator struck me – one of my best friends is also multiracial Asian, and she talks about how she craves Asian people identifying her as Asian. Which I find so interesting because growing up in the Midwest in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I hated when people called me out as Asian. It felt like “You are different and other” and I just wanted to fit in. And because that’s my experience, I assume other people don't want to be othered, right? But she was like, “No, I’m so happy when Asian people identify me as Asian,” because she looks ambiguous and all she wants is that recognition. And your story reminded me of that.

Yes. Maybe you’ve experienced this as well, but there were times in my life where my Asian identity was something I either really wanted to identify with or didn't, in part depending on my relationship with my father. It was challenging at times – there are challenges in all relationships, right? But it was easy for me to take whatever anger I had with him and tie it to a stereotype of what Asian fathers look like and to call it bad, to bucket it there. That was in my preteen/teen phase. We moved back to Ohio, I'm having a lot of these unresolved feelings, and it was easy for me to be engulfed in my Midwestern environment and be like, “Well, if that's not great, I can identify less with being Asian.” But if I had friends over to our house, it was filled with Chinese furniture. There was a shoe cabinet at the front where you take off your shoes. We had wonton-making night with friends. The cultural things weren't going away.

The dominant parts of my identity will ebb and flow. As my marriage was ending, I was taking my name back. The older I get, the wiser I become, hopefully, and the more I’m thinking about things and able to reframe. I was starting to recognize that my dad did come to the States in his early 20s to go to university, he decided to stay against his parents' desires, he was disowned by his dad, and he was the only one that came here. I started to recognize the challenges around coming here and why assimilation probably felt like the only thing he could do and it felt good. So I started to recognize and empathize with maybe why he interacted with me in the way that he did, which was stereotypically distant, not super-emotional. And that was also how his father interacted with him. So I was able to have a different kind of empathy. I started to swing back.

Another interesting moment in my experience of my identity was around the pandemic, when anti-Asian violence was escalating. I was worrying about my dad and feeling really connected to the community and really sad about what was happening, but also not feeling fully recognized as an Asian person. There was a moment where a mixed Asian person partnered with someone else to hold a virtual healing circle. I met all these mixed Asians over Instagram because we all joined it. We were able to still be seen.

There was this other moment where someone who worked in the food space was calling out restaurateurs and chefs that were culturally appropriating and not respecting culture and cooking Chinese food, but not giving back to that community. That was a time during the pandemic when that was happening all over the place. I was agreeing with the narrative and feeling proud to put that out in the world and share it. And then he was called out for slamming a transracial Asian adoptee, and all this stuff came out around how he was critical of a mixed Asian person who decided to start an Asian restaurant. I was pretty shook. I adopted this person's ideals and then felt totally disowned by them, this full Asian person. So it was this very painful experience, especially as my connection to my Asian identity was strengthening and I just wanted more.

That whiplash – I hate it so much, the conditional inclusion that multiracial Asians can have in the community. I feel like there’s more acceptance now than there used to be, but monoracial Asian people can be real dicks about this, intentionally and unintentionally. I'm really sorry you experienced that.

Yeah, it's not pretty sometimes.

No, it's really not.

When you have complete freedom to identify however you want, how do you identify yourself – racially, ethnically, whatever you prefer – and has this changed over the course of your life?

As a kid, my mom would say “Amerasian,” which I haven't heard in a long time. I would also get “hapa” and I owned that for a while until I recognized that perhaps that’s not just for any mixed Asian, it needs to be for someone who has ties to a Hawaiian background. I recently had a Hawaiian hapa tell me, “I think you can own that identity.” And I'm still like, “I'm probably not going to call myself that. But thank you.”

For the majority of my life, I would say, “I'm half Asian.” And sometimes when I meet new people, I’ll still be like, “Are you a halfie too?” But I'm getting more comfortable with the idea of “mixed Asian” because it’s more inclusive. I have friends that are like, “I'm a quarter.” And I'm like, “That's okay. You're still a mixed Asian.” So I tend to say mixed Asian. Multiracial also works, but mixed is easier to say, so that's what I usually say.

The older I'm getting, as more people perceive me and project something onto me, I'm trying to take more control of it. I recently joined a new team and I had the opportunity to do a quick intro. It had three sections, and one was about being mixed Asian. So I've gotten more comfortable with sharing sooner that I'm mixed Asian. I'm not going to do it with a stranger, because I don't owe everybody that. But if I'm engaging with someone and I want to have a relationship form, I'm quicker to express who and what I am.

How has being multiracial been a challenge for you in your personal and or professional life?

In the same way that Asian women can be fetishized, mixed women and mixed Asian women can be fetishized, right?

Oh, it's another level.

Yeah, it's not great. In dating contexts, there’s been this overly expressed conversation around how beautiful I am. I don't love it. There’s a lot more to us than what we look like. Not that we don't want to be considered attractive – I think most of us appreciate that – but it's the way it's done sometimes. I'm like, “No, no thank you.”

Crossing the line into yuck.

Yes, exactly. And the challenges when the perception isn't necessarily what I want, as we've talked about. Sometimes when I'm entering fully Asian spaces, there’s a bit of apprehension or maybe – I don't want to say fear. But there are questions of “Am I going to be recognized? Am I going to be seen? Am I going to be accepted?” Just this little feeling. I volunteer with a group called Apex for Youth, which supports Asian youth in the city, often impoverished or in a home where their parents don't speak English at all, and they're the first ones to bridge that cultural gap. I love this organization. But in my interview with them, I was like, “You know, I'm mixed.” It can be challenging sometimes. There's always a little moment in fully Asian spaces where I have to tell myself, “It’s okay. You can be seen.” 

It seems like at its core, it's maybe a fear of rejection. And it makes perfect sense when it's something that’s so central to who you are and your identity -- that fear that you might be rejected by other people who share that identity. It makes total sense why you would feel apprehensive. Even though I hate that for you, I understand it.

Yeah, and I’m sort of forcing myself to be there, but the questions or the feelings are always there. They’re there, but I'm still doing it.

Which says a lot about you and your commitment and your fortitude, because fixing that problem is not your job. It's monoracial Asians’ job to fix that – we need to have a broader understanding of what it means to be Asian and be more proactively inclusive. So the fact that you're willing to still put yourself out there and keep trying says a lot about you.

How has being multiracial been an asset to you in your personal and professional life?

There are more and more multiracial Asians these days. I get the census emails and I get excited about how the survey has gotten better and continues to get better with feedback. They're saying multiracial people are going to be the fastest-growing group in the US. So now there are many more of us, which is amazing. But when I was in college and applying for internships, my dad was like, “Leverage it.” Leverage your being Asian – anything that was a little different was a huge asset. So during college, I do feel like that was a part of my success with getting internships and things like that.

As a people group, we’re still small. I know we're growing and I'm not always gonna feel special, but because of when I was born, it has felt like a special identity. When I met another mixed Asian person, whatever context it was, it was always so exciting. The experience of being other is sometimes challenging, but most of the time, it’s a complete joy. It’s mostly been a joyful thing in my life to think about my identity and communicate about it and meet and talk to people.

That's wonderful. And what you were saying about the numbers increasing the way that they are – you were a pioneer in some way, right? Because growing up, especially in the Midwest, being multiracial was such a rare thing, but now the numbers are exponentially higher, especially with the generation below us. So you're a trailblazer of sorts.

Yeah. It’s interesting, too, to think about when marriage between different races was legalized. The fact that it was –

Illegal? Within our parents' lifetimes?

Exactly. That’s the other thing I point back to. When I meet multiracial Asians that are older than me, I’m always like, “Oh, shit.”

That's a good point – it makes a lot of sense why the numbers have changed in the way they have. But speaking of the youths, what advice do you have for kids or teenagers who are growing up multiracial Asian?

First, I'm excited for them because representation has changed drastically, so they get to see themselves regularly in media. I love the YA shows – Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty, the spin-off. I watch all these shows with mixed Asian kids. But back in my day, there was only one – Kristen Kreuk on Smallville.

Oh my God, you just took me all the way back.

Right? That was it. That was our representation. So I'm just excited. And I would say fully embrace that and let that help shape and form your story as well, because you get to see yourself on screen.

Be open to having conversations about it. That's probably harder when you're younger, but be willing to have conversations about the challenges and the beautiful things, recognizing it as a full part of your expression.

Thinking about Maria P. Root’s Bill of Rights, I would also like to affirm that you get to identify however you want. I hear a lot now from other mixed Asians that you are multiple wholes, not halves. I used to say I'm half Asian and now I say mixed. You are whole parts of multiple identities and that's an incredible thing.

Something we talked about offline was the concept of a bridge. I appreciate and understand the idea, but I don't always love it when people tell us that we're like a bridge between identities because literally in our blood, we are that bridge. That's a lot of pressure to put on a human. So yes, maybe people see you that way, but you don't have to do anything with that. You get to connect with those different parts of your identity in the ways you want to. Hopefully there's more ease.

I appreciate how you articulated that. It’s a lot to put on one person or one group of people – like “Hey, you're gonna solve racism.” First, that’s not how racism works. Second, that's an unreasonable amount to put on a person who did not opt into this.

Is there anything I haven't asked about that you’d like to share?

Mixed Asian Media is a resource I would recommend following. I went to one of their festivals last year and I've met one of the co-founders a couple of times. She's awesome. I remember when I found it, I was like, “Oh my god, this is amazing.” Things like this did not exist when I was growing up. They're doing a lot. Asian American and Asian representation has skyrocketed in a lot of ways recently. Of course, there's still a lot of work to be done, but it has grown. Now we have a group that's constantly asking the question of “Where is the mixed Asian experience in this?” Showing up and representing for us.