Every time I volunteer for the Vancouver Asian Film Festival, I reflect on being Asian-Canadian and my identity.

I have had so many opportunities to join organizations that either celebrate my heritage or be around other Asian-Canadians, yet I’ve always avoided them. My close friends are Caucasian. Statistically speaking, I should have more Asian friends. After all, I am living in “Hongcouver.”

When I’m around a lot of Asians, I either get a little overwhelmed by the whole feeling of “we’re Asian, rah rah rah” or I feel a sense of belonging. This weekend, I watched a film entitled Miss Chinatown, USA. It was a documentary about this young (Asian) woman in Seattle competing in a Miss Chinatown pageant. She reminded me of myself. 11 years ago, I competed in the Miss Vancouver Chinatown pageant. Outside of our families, we both had very little Asian influence. I think being in the pageant was the first time where I felt like I belonged somewhere. (To be in my pageant, you just had to be of Asian heritage. You didn’t even have to be able to speak any Asian languages.)

My friends don’t understand what it’s like to be Asian-Canadian, and I don’t fully understand what it’s like to be white. Sure I’ve lived in Canada all my life and have participated in typical Canadian/North American activities, but still…I don’t know. I just shrug my shoulders because I can’t express exactly how I feel right now.

There was another film I watched, and it was made by an American with Vietnamese roots. He was adopted from Vietnam by a white family in California, and he always felt he was “white” until he kept getting questioned about his history. Now he’s in his 30s and just getting started on discovering his history.

Listening to the filmmakers during the festival was also inspiring and very interesting. Justin Lin was talking about the business of churning out Hollywood movies and how Asians are lumped with Caucasians because our spending habits are the same, and Asians never show a desires for an Asian-American market. (African-Americans account for the largest percentage of movie-goers, I think, and Latinos take the smallest piece of the pie in the States.)

It just made me think that Asian-North American are unique, but we don’t celebrate our culture and heritage enough. I highly doubt it’s because we don’t value our heritage, but we just don’t stop to think about it.