Where Are You From?

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Sabrina Didner

Sept 2023

Where are you from?

They ask with eyes turned towards distant places of crimson lanterns inked with calligraphy strokes, floral dragons with open maws, large families around a table heavy with bamboo steamers, fat baos and glistening noodles.

I’m from Westport, Connecticut.

It’s in, like, the tail of the state towards New York.

It is an exceedingly affluent and white town.

We have a beach.

We have the best public school system in the state.

We have daughters exactly like their mothers.

We have teenagers speed along the roads at night because there’s nowhere to go.

But I can tell that’s not what you want to know. I can tell by the smile on your face that comes too quickly to hide subverted expectations and graciously pull lips away from further questioning.

I was born in JiangXi province, China. It’s no tourist destination. It’s no rice paddy slum. It is simply home to the orphanage at which I was left shortly after my birth and adopted from at eight months old.

No, I was too young to remember anything.

No, I don’t know if I would like to know them.

I did not know I was Asian until I was seven years old. But they didn’t call it “Asian” then. They called it yellow. They called it pulled eyes and chanted taunts. They called it whispered assumptions that the eczema on the backs of my legs were marks from my parents beating me.

I heard Asian as confusion.

I didn’t understand. My parents didn’t beat me. Why was I crying? Why did this hurt?

I tried to see Asian in my reflection. I looked through what were supposedly almond eyes in the mirror and tried to see yellow under my skin.

I first felt Asian as difference. I felt Asian as an absence. I felt Asian as fraud. Whatever Asian was to others, I did not feel Asian.

I am enclosed in all directions by a mirror made by your hands. If this lens in my eyes could go both ways and I could look backwards into my head and bypass all diffraction. I can’t see myself in your mirror. I can’t picture myself behind these eyes.

I am from running away from home when I was four—quick to cry and quick to anger.

I am from wars of stubbornness and tantrums and wills when my dad would teach me math at six.

I am from sword fights of metal poles and laundry baskets with my brother.

I am from cooking when my parents were not home at eight. They knew I’d be fine.

I am from perfect handwriting because I would not allow it to be any other way.

I am from the landing at the bottom of the stairwell on which I sat with my head on my knees as I listened to my mom slam cabinets and my dad yell.

I am from asking one day if I could live with him.

I am from packed suitcases containing as much of a house as I could bring to an apartment back and forth.

I am from control in all areas of my life. I am from making lists. I am from planning ahead. I am from knowing what to do.

I am from a brother across three inches of wall and one inch of sealed door.

I am from a dad who pushes me to do my best and cried tears of pride when I said I wanted to go to graduate school and pursue science.

I am from a mother who gives good hugs.

I am from friends that feel like home.

I am from a friend that ran so black and deep in my veins I had to cut to get her out.

I am from anger that burned for so long and so hot until it didn’t. Its ash is a grit I rub between my fingers when I think about it.

I am from a boy that was too much,

a boy that wasn’t right,

a boy that was a friend,

a boy that was too nice,

a boy that said too little,

a boy that left too fast.

I am from doing too much and never feeling enough.

I am from reading the same books again and again because familiar worlds are loved worlds.

I am from a cat on my chest.

I am from drawing and erasing and tearing and cherishing.

I am from images in my mind I could never make.

I am from cello strings that no longer vibrate under my fingers, music that I can still weave with phantom hands and hear with kinder ears.

But where were you born?

I was born in JiangXi Province, China.