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What Makes a ‘Real’ American?
Moving beyond the assumption that all Asian Americans are immigrants
When asked at one of his press events if he’d heard the assertion that Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris was not eligible to serve, President Donald Trump replied with this: “But that’s a very serious, you’re saying that, they’re saying that she doesn’t qualify because she wasn’t born in this country.”
Senator Harris is a Black and Asian American woman, born in Oakland, California, a citizen by birth of the United States. Her mother was an immigrant from India and her father an immigrant from Jamaica when they met as grad students at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s. Because Harris is an extremely skilled politician, an experienced elected official, and a charismatic leader, she is also quite a formidable threat to the incumbents.
Quite predictably, Trump and his surrogates have resorted to racist dog whistles to criticize Harris, her accent, her personality, even questioning her citizenship and eligibility to run for the office.
I say “predictably” because Trump and his media allies used this same strategy to undermine President Barack Obama during the eight years of his presidency. And also because as an Asian American born in California, I’ve faced these same tropes my whole life. Asian Americans are always considered perpetual foreigners in our own country.
I’ve been asked too many times to count where I’m from, where I’m really from.
When I went on tour for my first novel more than 20 years ago, White people in the audience at bookstore readings routinely expressed surprise at my American accent. This occurred in all parts of the U.S., from coast to coast, in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions. It occurred in diverse cities with large Asian American populations where you’d assume people would be used to seeing a woman with Asian facial features speaking in English. “Your English is really good,” I remember one man telling me at a bookstore in Berkeley, California.
“I would hope so,” I said. “I just wrote this whole novel in English.”
