What is an American? This might be a deeper part of my constant question of where is home. Is an American someone who believes in the Constitution? Is an American someone who was born on American soil? Is an American someone who has become an American citizen? Is an American someone who eats hot dogs and celebrates the Fourth of July?
My answer is the same as it was to the question of home. I don’t know.
Am I American? I don’t know. I became a citizen when I was 7 when my parents became citizens. I wasn’t born in America. I am ESL, but I don’t have an accent. I don’t agree with everything that was written in the Constitution. I don’t like celebrating the Fourth of July. I don’t believe America is the greatest country on earth. I believe all people of this earth are one. I don’t celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving. I am not a Christian. My skin is not white. But I do love hot dogs and I definitely love burgers. I miss certain things about America when I am abroad and I wish some things were different when I am in America.
A couple of years ago, I was talking to one of my friends about how I felt like I was an underachiever and a fraud. I felt like I figured out how to beat the system and that was how I did so well in school. I felt like I got into a top college because of Affirmative Action. I felt like I didn’t really own my house because my dad helped me buy it. I felt like I owned my own business but I didn’t do a good job with it. I was not smart, I was not talented, and I was not successful. She then told me about imposter syndrome.
Simply stated, imposter syndrome is when a highly achieving individual attributes their achievements to luck rather than ability. She told me it was very common among minorities. Her words resonated with me and in that moment, I felt like the past 3 decades of my life all made sense. I spent so much of my life feeling like an imposter, a fake.
Am I a fake, an imposter posing as an American? I know that I have spent most of my life feeling like I didn’t belong. But do most people feel that way? Don’t most women feel that way because of body image issues? Don’t most teenagers feel that way as they traverse their school years? Do most alternative medicine healers like myself feel that way in the medical field? Do I have all of that plus the added factor of being an immigrant?
I don’t know what it means to be an American. In the past week, there has been an outpouring of love and acceptance to counter the rhetoric of hate towards and dismissal of immigrants in America. It feels good to be seen by others in that way. It feels good to have people say “You belong.” But I don’t know if I do. I feel like an outsider.
After 33 years in this country, I feel like I am finally seeing me. But the image is not clear. I am trapped inside of the house with locked doors and windows. I can only see out and observe the neighboring houses. I know my house is different because it doesn’t feel like how I would imagine the other houses to feel. But for a second in my heart, I caught a glimpse of what my house looks like in comparison to the others on the street. Its like I had access to google street view and they came and snapped pictures on the day when the garden was getting overgrown by weeds, the Japanese maple was spilling over the fence and blocking the view, the forsythia was limiting space on the sidewalk, the cherry tree was branching in all different directions and starting to cover the roof. It looked like a mess.
And compared to the neat and orderly houses next to it, it did not belong.