Canto Cutie - Volume 2

Can you share more about your
family’s immigration history and
your experiences studying and living
abroad?
My father was a multi-generation
Cantonese Hong Konger and my
mother is a second-generation
Toishan-Australian. Growing up in
Hong Kong speaking English (my first
language, as I mainly communicated
with my mother whose first language
is also English), made me realize that I
was not quite "the norm", of a
Cantonese speaking Hong Konger.
Only when I got older did I learn about
British colonization's lasting
emotional and social roots in Hong
Kong and the power dynamic of how
English is a language fraught with
particular connotations.
I studied and lived in Connecticut,
which is about as far from Hong Kong
as you get. Not because I didn't love
Hong Kong, but I was granted an
opportunity to study there and I felt
compelled to seize it. And I suddenly
felt that what made me comfortably
invisible (at least, until I opened my
mouth to speak) in Hong Kong made
me so obviously an outsider in a
white-majority town. It was a
humbling experience that reminded
me of how little I know about the
world, and how much more learning I
have to do about the global structures
of racism and capitalism that create
conditions for immigration.