“I want to honor my family by being a good daughter,” she continued, “but I also want the freedom to be myself, to say and do what I think is right, even if that means deviating from the path that is expected of me. For so long, I’ve been scared—scared of what my parents will think when I go home, scared of what my friends in the army would think if they found out I’m a girl. I’m not scared anymore. It doesn’t matter if I’m pretending to be Ping or if I’m Mulan. As long as I am true to myself, then my reflection will show who I really am.”
