I was raised in the early 90s, a time when every morning after our second period class, a obnoxiously loud speaker would come on and a squeaky womanly voice would scream that Chairman Mao wants us to conduct eye exercises for the glorification of the People’s Republic of China.
My dad is a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. Though, being a Communist in China those days is like being admitted into Boy Scouts, an honor for good boys who listen to their mama. When the immigration officer at the US embassy asked my dad if he is a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, my dad said “no” and that’s really how I was able to grow up in Texas after all.
For awhile when I was in high school an FBI agent followed my dad and asked him out to dinner in Burger King several times to “talk”. The talk was just routine inspections since we came from a region in China of 50% Muslims, but the real point here is you’d think the FBI would invite my dad to a nicer restaurant. One day the FBI agent called our house and my dad was away getting his gall bladder removed at the hospital. I told the FBI agent exactly that, and the agent never called us again.
The experience did affect my father. He started to suspect that our house was being watched and wire tapped. He started to tell me that I should stop discussing my radical liberal ideologies because they can all hear and they are going to get me in trouble. My dad also wanted me to swear that I won’t run off and become a spy no matter how enticing the money may seem, from either the US or from China. In turn, I began to believe that governments are not to be trusted, not only because governments lie, but also because your allegiance could change according to circumstances in life you cannot control, and governments are like egotistical men – they hate the uncommitted.
I was on track to become a proud citizen of China, then I moved to a country I absolutely hated but had to learn to live in. Somewhere in that process I fell in love with the complexities of my new country despite the country never completely accepting me back. For a long time I was not ready to accept the fact that I am really a citizen of nowhere, a citizen of everywhere. I am reluctant to accept because I believe identities are crucial. We must and should be able to define who we are despite ambiguities, for human beings are nothing without roots and cultures and a sense of where we belong. And history has shown repeatedly that those who really know themselves end up excelling in life.
Barack Obama inspired me because he was the first famous person anywhere who lived in a foreign land to openly talk about the complexities of that experience. He taught me that the end result of this radical struggle to define who you are is not to obtain a precise definition of who you are (you never will.) But rather, it is to obtain confidence in knowing what your values are, values deeply rooted in your cultures and your race that you should be incredibly proud to own up to. And soon, you will realize that these values so uniquely created by your culture really also exist in other cultures as well. Barack Obama is the President of the United Sates. But he is also a citizen of the world.
The values I have learned growing up in that tiny Chinese city surrounded by that large group of caring families forever defined who I am. I no longer have to feel genuine enough to claim to be a citizen of China, a resident of New York, a alumni from a great Public University to feel like I am being defined. I carry the values I have gathered with me everywhere I go, and those values, not my color or gender, define my identity.
I reject Miss Universe’s definition of “Citizen of the World.” Citizen of the world does not mean you feel like you belong everywhere. That is impossible and quite disorienting. To become a citizen of the world, you have to first understand what you have learned from your unique background and cultural upbringing, and next transfer your experiences into values you can share with others, anyone around the world.
And thus, I am a Chinese living in America and an Americanized Chinese – and just like Obama and others out there who share our values of respect and curiosity and freedom of expression – we are citizens of the world.
