do you live in china?

I was at a playground last week and there were a couple of 4-5 year old kids already playing there. One kid stopped to ask me if I lived in China. It made me chuckle for a variety of reasons. Kid-Carman was like, "oh brother, here we go again" and was half expecting this kid to start mocking the Chinese language. Mom-Carman was like, "kids are so genuine and curious, and how wonderful it is they have no sense of ego yet". I told him that I live here in Whitehorse though my family did live in China a long long time ago before they moved to Canada; and what about him? He told me he lives here too. His follow-up question was whether I live downtown or up the hill. Like I said, kids are so genuine.

I've spent some time thinking about how to talk to kids about race, ethnicity and nationality. What does it mean that I'm Chinese? What does it mean that I'm Canadian? My partner is half-Indian, half-white. What does that even mean?! If you put yourself in the shoes of a child, that is extremely abstract stuff. If you get existential as an adult, it is still extremely abstract stuff. I'm not quite ready to get into blood quantum with my child...

My daughter knows I'm Chinese, and she knows she is Chinese, but was confused why her dad isn't Chinese. She said her brother wasn't Chinese, either, thinking that "the boys weren't Chinese"... be wary of kid-logic! Kids can make huge leaps in their logic that we could not even fathom! We explained that it has to do with parents: my parents are Chinese, so I am Chinese; one of her parents is Chinese, so she is Chinese; and neither of dad's parents are Chinese, so he is not Chinese. Her brother does have a Chinese parent, so he is in fact Chinese. (How many times do you think I can type or say Chinese before it stops sounding like a word?)

So now that we have established who is Chinese and who is not, next comes the question of what it even means to be Chinese. Like I mentioned above, my explanation is that our family came from a place called China a long time ago. We are now Canadian, too, because when our family moved away from China, they moved to a place called Canada. I'll need to put my thinking cap back on for when she starts asking why some Canadians (aka first-generation+ white Canadians) are simply Canadians while BIPOC are often demanded to have a hyphenated Canadian status. I haven't broached the topic/word/idea of being white just yet, either. I'm in my 30s and I'm still grappling with this moving target of a concept, let alone how to explain it to a child and be ready for all their follow-up questions! I'll let you know when I come up with something.

When I left the playground, I reflected on whether I would call what happened a racial microaggression or not. It certainly would have been if that question was posed to me by an adult - but it came from a kid - so I really wasn't sure. I guess it left me wondering a few things and gave me a few ideas of what we need to communicate with our kids more:

• Why do our kids assume BIPOC can't be "from here" and live here? Are we explicitly telling them that BIPOC can be from here and are born in Canada everyday? If not, why not?

• Let's tell our kids Canadian heritage stories of BIPOC so they know that they were an important part of building this country up - like how Whitehorse's first grocery store was opened by a Chinese immigrant.

• What if everyone - kids and adults alike who may be curious about someone - asked open-ended questions instead of pointed questions that are rife with assumption? (i.e. "Where are you from?" Instead of "Are you from x?")... and then of course we need to all learn to accept the answer given, even if it doesn't "satisfy" you.

• Let's also teach our kids that the question "Where are you from" can be very exhausting for many BIPOC and maybe isn't the best question to ask a new friend or to start a conversation. Here's a great article by Tanzina Vega about why.

photo from https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/20/opinions/where-are-you-really-from-vega-opinion/index.html

I would like to acknowledge and applaud the kid for totally accepting my answer of Whitehorse, and then moving on. Because of this, I would not call it a microaggression as it seemed to be a genuine question. A legitimate question? - I'm not sure, but at the very least genuine. Often times the transgression goes much deeper because people don't accept your answer of "No, I live in Whitehorse" because it doesn't answer their true question which is What is your ethnicity? Tell me how to categorize you. And then I just have to roll my eyes (only on the inside though... we can't upset anyone who is just "showing interest in you", can we?).