Hideko Mitani

Read the Faculty Introduction.

As I am paying the old 阿姨 behind the counter, I cannot help but zone out. I blankly smile at her and nod, not quite sure what I was agreeing to or if she was asking a question I was meant to respond to but was too busy pretending to be a local for my mediocre Chinese skills to go unnoticed. I quickly bag my groceries before there is any more time for the 阿姨 to make small talk, but it doesn’t take her much to realize I am not from here.She asks, “你是来自哪里?” (where are you from?). My heart sank a little as I answered with the exact same phrase I always use to introduce myself no matter the language, “我的妈妈是中国人。 我的爸爸是日本人。 但是我是在智利出生长大” (My mom is Chinese, my dad is Japanese, but I was born and raised in Chile). Saying these words in my noticeable foreign accent came with a stabbing feeling in the gut. This time, I did not have the upper hand of boasting my Chinese and Japanese background like I used to in Chile, deluding people into believing I am more well-versed in my heritage than I am. I can’t precisely remember how the conversation followed. I can imagine the 阿姨 said something along the lines of “Oh, that is so interesting, so you must speak many languages?” or at least that is what I am used to assuming based on my past experiences. Walking back to the dorms felt like a walk of shame, where the sense of failure I thought I had conquered was looming over me. This moment was ready to take away all the courage I mustered to accept I was never going to be  well-versed in the necessary subtext to intimately understand my Chinese heritage and culture, much less the Japanese side of my background.