How important is citizenship when defining your identity as a member of a different ethnicity in America?
The topic of identity and intersectionality is discourse that has been explored and echoed throughout the growth of diversity in the West. When exploring and defining identity, people find that it’s easy to know who you are to yourself, but when explaining it, it’s so much easier to claim a single part of your identity, maybe one ethnicity or culture instead of another or all of them. As diversity and interracial relationships are increasing and accepted more commonly, Gen Z and millenials find themselves struggling to explain their identity to others, but the question is, why do we have to explain our identity, our citizenship status, even, to others?
In the situation of American-born Chinese Olympic gold medalist Eileen Gu, citizenship status is used by reporters and people to argue about the Olympian’s identity. Eileen Gu, an 18-year-old Gen Z, declines to respond to any questions about her citizenship and claims, “When I’m in the U.S., I’m American, but when I’m in China, I’m Chinese,” which other Chinese-Americans also agree with. The conversation surrounding her identity is based on China’s policy that bans dual citizenship and the Olympics rule that to compete for a country, an athlete must be a citizen of that country.
Whether or not Eileen Gu is a citizen of the U.S., she should have every right to claim being an American as part of her identity because she has grown up in both the U.S. and in China. Both have been vital in her development as a person and as a skier. Claiming one’s citizenship publicly should not be the end-all-be-all of their own identity because citizenship refers to nationality, something that is considered more official than social and cultural. At Temple University, the demographics of race vary widely and the student body is considered a melting pot of cultures. However, if everyone was requested to identify themselves according to citizenship in order to mark their culture and the truth to their identity, the melting pot might in fact disintegrate. Asking for people’s citizenship status is a breach of their personal and governmental identity.
Curious about this topic, I asked a fellow Temple student what she identifies as in terms of culture: “I’m Indian-American,” she said. When asked (with consent) if she identifies as Indian-American because she has citizenship in both countries, she said no. The questioning did not go further because it is not my place as a non-authorized official to dig about someone’s status as a citizen in any country, and neither should it be a media representative’s place, in the case of Gu.
Identity is an umbrella term, and so many terms fall under the umbrella, like cultural, social, sexual, political, and what ever other identity a person wants to claim. If Gu decides to be Chinese in China and American in America and ski for China, it should be up to her and the officials that allow her to ski. Identity is defined and explained (as much as they want to explain) by the person that owns it, not by anyone else, and it should not be questioned any further in order to respect people and their personal information.