I Am a Transracial Adoptee and I Am Not "Grappling" with My Racial Identity

"I'm grappling with my Asian/Chinese/Korean/Etc identity," says literally every Asian adoptee interviewed. So, you must be grappling too, huh?

Well, guess what? I'm not. I am proudly and confidently 100% Asian American.

I have no doubt about it. Probably because I grew up in a diverse environment and never felt that I had to choose between what some people feel are the only two options in America: white and black. I have never "chased" whiteness and I was never raised with "anti-blackness."

That is such an American point of view where the only people who matter in the race conversation are white and black. Um, excuse me, Asian Americans exist too. Just because we don't get the representation we deserve in Hollywood doesn't mean we simply don't exist.

I'm not trying to put other adoptees down who are truly grappling, but I am frustrated and disappointed in society's myopic expectations that all adoptees should feel the exact same way. This is because the media will only highlight adoptees who are still questioning themselves and are unsure of themselves. It paints us all as one adoptee caricature and I don't appreciate it when idiotic strangers think they are owed my life story because life stories are all adoptees have to give to the media.