Where did you grow up?

Last week, a professor of mine asked me, “Where did you grow up?” I answered, “Taipei, Taiwan.” I consider myself to be a diasporic individual, having lived in Taipei, New York City, and Toronto throughout my childhood. When I elaborated by saying I was born in Taipei and raised there for six and a half years, my professor scoffed and responded, “Six years doesn’t count as growing up there. You grew up here.” In that moment, I was baffled but composed, explaining that I identify as having spent my formative years on the island and I frequently return to my birthplace to visit family. This is not the first time my notion of a “hometown” has been questioned, and this invalidation is exhausting.  

Defending where I’m from should not have to be such a laborious task. My being is deeply entwined with my Taiwanese heritage and lineage, from speaking Mandarin as my mother tongue to knowing where the alleyways twist to find shaved ice storefronts in bustling night markets. I watched the Taipei 101 tower construction occur on my carpool to elementary school every morning and knew which highway led to which of my grandparents’ houses at opposite ends of the city. I have my preferences for which convenience store sells the best pudding ice cream bars and know that I can rattle off my specific order for two dollar bubble tea without hesitation. The nuanced details of my Taiwanese ties have all been developed over the countless hours I’ve spent at home. Now, I return knowing my jet lag will be combated by the roosters’ crow reverberating off the metal roof shingles before dawn and island rainfall knocking me awake from a nap to weather the humidity. My grandmother knows my favorite breakfast items are 蔥油餅 (green onion pancakes) and 蘿蔔糕 (radish cakes), which I gorge on while anticipating the fresh, sweet mangoes that, as my mother says, make Taiwan a “fruit heaven.”  

I also say I’m from New York. Having learned English through ESL classes in Manhattan and having gained my first understandings of North America through the city’s lens, I value the time I was given as a precocious immigrant child in Morningside Heights. When I’m asked about New York, I say I grew up there, but this assertion does not negate my Taiwanese origins. A friend overheard this statement once and countered, “You didn’t grow up there.” This patronizing dictation of my transnational trajectory—as if the language I learned and the school I attended in New York City were irrelevant—was indicative of how my story, one that I should have the right to spell out, is repeatedly warped. Whether I lived somewhere for half a year, six years, or ten years, I should not have to justify my time and understanding of home. I know my favourite stack of fiction to pursue in the Strand Book Store, the joyful seclusion of visiting The Cloisters on a warm occasion, and on my last visit I almost cried from the nostalgia, visiting my local New York Public Library branch as I reminisced about serially borrowing Magic Tree House chapter books to read on my bunk bed.  

A room in our Manhattan apartment acted as immigration storage for all of our books until our relocation to a house in Toronto, where the couch covers and the cherry wood table are still used without fail. I say I’m from Taipei, New York City, and Toronto not because of an opportunistic desire to talk about my experiences, but because it presents the most cohesive story of myself. I am a child of the islands of Taiwan and Manhattan and have grown into a multifaceted individual in Toronto. I actively choose to embody my hometowns as part of my identity, and having truths diminished to offhand comments by white folks whose upbringings are vastly different from my own only furthers the inequities faced by immigrant women of colour. I bounced through five schools in eight years of primary and middle school education because I sought a diversity of languages, arts, and cultures that defined my diasporic experiences in three countries. I live and breathe my mountains in Taiwan, hear the roars of motorcycle and scooter engines competing for a spot on the road and hunger for piping hot egg cakes that I must finish before entering the metro unless I want to risk a fine. I carry with me the stories of riding three subway lines with my mother to travel to my bilingual school on the Lower East Side every day and singing in endless choirs at my specialized arts high school in Toronto. My education and body have been influenced by my transnational journeys, and my identity was shaped incontrovertibly through the cities I cherish.