“What are you?” is an act of taxonomy, even if the asker does not realize it. It is the question the scientists asked of my hybrid butterflyfish. The question my SAT forms asked of me before I opened my test booklet to write an essay about whether people should accept unfairness as a condition of becoming an adult. The question strangers asked me in the malls of my childhood, peering over my bowl cut to see if a legible pair of parents might suddenly appear. I have lived my life dogged by The Question.
