Looking back, I realize I had written the essay not just for a white editor but also for a white audience. Like a dutiful little trash compactor, I had digested my messy heap of an identity into a manageable lesson for people who were not like me. I had never considered what a mixed-Asian essay that I wrote for other mixed-Asian people might look like. Or, rather, what a mixed-white essay that I wrote for other mixed-white people might look like.
