Some white Americans assume that living here automatically means I owe them loyalty or support, but that expectation feels hollow. “Assimilation” gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean in practice? Too often, it comes across as pressure to abandon your identity, to conform in ways that feel like betrayal, or to accept a subordinate role just to be accepted.
There’s also a deeper frustration behind it. If U.S. foreign policy hadn’t destabilized my home country, I might not even be here in the first place. So being told I should support a country I associate with that kind of harm feels unreasonable. From my perspective, it shouldn’t be surprising that I still feel connected to China and view it more favorably. And if China continues to develop, returning to my home country could become a real option.
The “American Identity” is a joke. This is a country that bombs and invades others to pilfer resources. America is a terrorist country.
There’s a pretty high Pacific Islander population in my area. They treat it exactly as that: a place to make money. They make no attempt to assimilate and send their money back to their home country. It’s neat to see how close knit they all are, they often eat family style. That’s a closeness that is completely absent in American culture except for a few days in the year where you end up squabbling about politics with your grandparents.