Banana or Bridge? How Capitalism Impacts My Racial Identity

Everybody wants to feel like they belong somewhere or to something. People who advocate non-conformity and claim that they prefer to feel isolated are lying to society and themselves. As one former sociology student pointed out in his paper, "The self cannot exist without society, and society can't exist without the self or the individual" (Hinonangan 58). Ever since elementary school, I have always attempted to conform to my surroundings so that I could blend in and feel like I belonged somewhere. However, being one of the only Oriental faces in a school full of Caucasians hindered my attempts to blend into the crowd. Eventually, my Caucasian playmates looked beyond my race and accepted me as one of them, which resulted in my accepting myself to be one of them as well. As I progressed through elementary school into junior high, and then into high school, my racial identity molded into a Caucasian role and I lost touch with my Chinese culture. I was content with my Caucasian racial identity until I arrived at Binghamton last August as a freshman. I noticed that most of the Asian student population embraced their culture by surrounding themselves with Asian friends, speaking to each other in various Asian dialects, and even eating Chinese food on campus. An awareness of my abnormal racial identity surfaced, which started causing me some discomfort and confusion. In this paper I will try to answer the questions: Why have I not embraced my Chinese heritage and chosen to have a Caucasian racial identity, even though I am of 100% Chinese blood and descent? Why am I more comfortable befriending people of another race than those of my own? In order to answer these questions, I will explore issues of race and racism, status groups, exhibitions of deviance, and how the capitalist world-system has affected my unconscious choice of adopting a Caucasian racial identity. Introduction A Banana in Bloom Upon first glance at me, others have told me that my looks are deceiving. I am 100% Chinese, but have often been confused for being a "mix." Strangers sometimes refuse to accept that I am not of any mixed blood and that both of my parents are full-blooded Chinese. I guess this is because I do not exhibit the stereotypical Chinese physical attributes: pale skin, small eyes, a flat nose and hardly noticeable eyebrows. In fact, I am the complete opposite. This is fitting for my character, because while I do not look very Chinese, I also do not feel it either. My mother likes to tease me and call me a banana, meaning that I am "yellow" on the outside but "white" on the inside--which is a reference made towards my racial identity. My propensity to befriend people not of my race and my inability to relate to Asians never really bothered me until I left home and came to Binghamton. In fact, it was hardly ever an issue until recently; it was just something that I naturally accepted. I was born in Elmhurst, Queens, but moved to a pre-dominantly white suburb called Franklin Square on Long Island when my younger sister YuhLi was born. 16 years after her birth and our move, we are still living in Franklin Square. Growing up, I had only white playmates and never thought of myself as different until fourth grade when I started getting teased for having "chinky eyes." Fortunately, the taunts were very short-lived and I had no more problems after the fourth grade. This was the first time in my life that I realized my schoolmates did not reciprocate the perspective I held that they were the same as me. My parents were always bothered by the fact that my sister and I had no background in Chinese except for when we were in our house, since there were no other Chinese children in the neighborhood that we could associate with. I think this bothered my parents more than it bothered my sister and me. At the age of six, I was enrolled in Chinese School, which met once a week on a Saturday morning at a local high school where Chinese families in the local area brought their children to further enrich or enhance their Chinese. …