Growing up as a Chinese Mexican person, I lived much of my life thinking I was the only one. This belief was exacerbated by many of the Hispanic people I grew up with in Texas, who would look at me or my mother in disbelief at how good our Spanish was. Then there was the derogatory word “chino,” a dismissive and hurtful identifier some Spanish-speaking people use to refer to anyone who looks Asian. For a long time, I was hesitant to claim my Latinidad because I knew people would question it, so I simply began to identify as Asian American — even though it wasn’t the identity that most accurately reflected my truth.
Then came TikTok. The app — which has become something of a gathering place for countless communities, from ADHD TikTok to sobriety TikTok, Earth Tok, and Farm Tok — has led me to so many other Asian Latinos who speak openly about their identities. They’ve helped me realize that so many of us are connected by feelings of deep invalidation, but also a beautiful complexity. We’re classic examples of W.E.B. Du Bois' notion of “double consciousness,” or the idea that we’re constantly forced to perceive our own existence through the lens of other people. But in the past few years, I’ve realized that living in a constant state of twoness can be a good thing: Coming from two cultures that are deeply spiritual, community-oriented, and have bomb food is actually fun as hell.
