Elizabeth Tai counts herself a member of a “dying” cultural cohort, the “English-educated Chinese in Malaysia”:

I am what many Malaysians would call a banana: Chinese, but more proficient in English.

To others, I’m not “banana” enough, because by some freak of geography and luck, I can converse badly in Mandarin and in a rare form of Hokkien, the northern version spoken in Penang. But that doesn’t mean I’m Chinese enough for the Chinese-educated, who still firmly consider me a banana because I can’t read well, nor have I read the Chinese classics. So I exist in a weird in-between place.

Tai’s story is about her hope of seeing “the next generation of Chinese in Malaysia” adopting more Chinese language and culture while maintaining their western influences, thus eliminating the weird middle ground where she finds herself.

While Tai’s experience and perspective is specific to her cultural background, I found myself nodding along in recognition. I, being West Indian-born and American-raised, resonated with her sense of feeling both culturally part and apart. In middle- and high school, I was never “American” enough, while on summer trips back home I’d become “too American.” In my adulthood, I was both “too Black” and “not Black enough.” To some, I was merely Black on the outside, white on the inside—an Oreo, to use a term that, unlike Tai’s Asian “banana,” no Black person has ever called themselves.

I imagineed that our youth of today are more culturally cross-pollinated than ever in our history. I regularly witness my group of friends navigate these cultural intersections: the daughter of a half-West Indian, half-Chinese dad and Vietnamese mom embracing every aspect of her several cultures; the two kids of a Chinese-Malaysian mom and French-Canadian dad enrolled in a Chinese immersion school; or the daughter of a Jewish mom and Catholic dad choosing to celebrate her bat mitzvah. Our young people will be more culturally attuned than any previous generation. The kids, as they say, are alright.