Double-standards, mixed blood, and the "law of soil"
I am an American born first-generation Japanese. My early childhood was spent in a black neighborhood, and my adolesence in white suburbia. I do not know my native tongue fluently, although every day I wish that I had been taught as a child. I would like to know the opinions of others who were born into two cultures, two distinct ethnicities, two different societies.
I've always felt out of place, neither American (because, to my American peers I am Japanese, or I am Asian, or worse yet I am part of that obscure race that encompasses misconstrued "Geisha-girls" "Dragon-ladies" and Suzie Wong-types). Similarly, to the Japanese (not the Japanese American) I am an American. And woe... to be an American.
So, I'd really like to hear the opinions of others, or perhaps their stories... and, to quote one of the reviews from Dreams from my Father (Barack Obama)
“Provocative . . . Persuasively describes the phenomenon of belonging to two different worlds, and thus belonging to neither.”
New York Times Book Review