Test Identity Is Our Operating System - Part 5 Test
By Tom Kagy | 06 Sep, 2025

Navigating the vast cultural differences among Asian Americans forms another layer in our identity formation.

Hello, this is Tom Kagy with Unconventional Wisdom. 

Today we're continuing with Part 5 of the series Identity is Our Operating System. 

Race and all the baggage that carries in American society is an inescapable burden of growing up Asian in America. That can make us believe that simply being a part of the majority race would eliminate all conflicts.

We sometimes forget that beyond race are differences of upbringing, education, and personality. Certainly the experience of being surrounded by other Asians can be liberating and empowering, but the effort to fit in with other Asians can also subject us to cultural differences that can be nearly as alienating as racial stereotypes. 

Those of us Asian Americans who grew up surrounded by Whites develop sensibilities and preferences that differ markedly from those who grew up in predominantly Asian social settings. Those cultural differences and how we learn to cope with them add another layer to Asian American identity formation. 

Having spent most of my childhood among white schoolmates, I developed an early awareness of race and of white sensibilities.

Awareness is conscious, but adaptation of our sensibilities to our formative milieu is mostly instinctive. We rarely acquire an awareness of how our perceptions and tastes adjust to conform to surrounding norms. 

For my sophomore and junior years of high school, I went to Hawaii and attended a mostly Japanese American high school in Honolulu.

Finding myself surrounded by Asians, I initially felt a sense of assumed acceptance. Within a few days, I became acutely aware that my culture and sensibilities were very different from my schoolmates, most of whom had grown up in Asian majority schools and neighborhoods. My Hawaii experience played a big role in my own identity formation and was very much on my mind during my college years where I once again found myself in a predominantly white setting. 

Vivid memories of my years at McKinley High provided the material for Chapter Six of my college novel The Summerset.

***

The Summerset, Chapter 6

Dear Ma and Papa, 

I still can't get over how fresh and colorful everything is over here. It's almost too nice to be true. After three days of hunting, I found an apartment for $160 a month. It's a studio furnished with everything but taste, and is only a 10-minute bus ride from McKinley High. 

McKinley is the alma mater of Senators Fong and Inouye.

When Senator Inoue was student body president of McKinley High, the school raised $30,000 to buy an Air Force bomber during World War II. The students are mostly Japanese, so they call it Tokyo High sometimes.  While I was registering, I met a guy named Mike Koretsky who's new from the mainland and doesn't speak with that pidgin accent which I can hardly understand.

"Not a decent chick in either of my classes so far," I said. 

It was lunch on the first day of classes. 

"Are you kidding, man?" Mike's blue eyes sparkled as they widened in his mainland fresh, fair face. "This place is just crawling with those compact, foxy Japanese chicks. He waved his milk carton at the tanned, black-haired girls dressed in their short muumuus.

"I like tall blondes."

"You mean with big tits," he leered. 

"Forget the big tits, Koretsky. I mean, these girls look like they should be picking pineapples."

While waiting for fifth period to begin, I gazed out at the sky-reaching palms. They could have been the legs of some huge blue birds.

"Are you going to just sit there or take one?"

I glanced up and there, slender and blonde, and a good three inches taller than one of Mike's compacts, was my Petrarchan beauty. Actually, her lips were too prissy and her nose a shade too high, but still. 

"I'm Whitney Carson," she said, as I took one of the Modern Civics books.

The next morning, she hustled into my sophomore honors English class and dropped into the seat next to me.  

"I thought you might be in here," she said. I almost expected her to add, You Rascal, you! 

"How about me?" said Mike, leaning forward.  "Did you think I might be in here too?" 

Whitney shook her head vaguely and looked at me for guidance. 

"I've known Mike longer than anyone in the islands."

She smiled affably at my old friend. 

"How long is that?" 

"A week tomorrow."

I met Stan Fukuda in my French class. He had only recently moved from San Fernando, but he already dressed in faded aloha shirts, jeans, and zoris, and was working on picking up pidgin.  We worked on our tans together at Ala Moana Beach after school. 

"Hey, that Haole girl I see you walking around with," he began casually.  "It doesn't look right. Know what I mean?"

"What are you, my social director? She's a friend."

"She's not right for you." 

"I said she's a friend."

The phone rang as I was putting on my Adidas. It was Stan. 

"Hey, we get one pati tonight obah at da Red Lion? One of my friends da fuckah, he getting hitched up with one cute wahine. You like come?"

"Sure.  All right if I bring Mike?" 

"I no lie that fucking haole. He still tink he on da mainland. And his mahoo jokes. I start tink he one mahoo hisself."

"He's all right."

"Bro, if dat haole come, the pati gonna be pao-hana lie dat."

"Cut that pidgin crap. You've only been here six months."

"I'm telling you, Koretsky just isn't going to fit in.  These guys don't go for Haoles, know what I mean? Pick you up at seven."

I stepped out into the thick night air scented with the sweetness of Hawaiian flora and the salt of the sea breeze. At a break in the one-way traffic whizzing along Ala Wai Boulevard, I ran across to the dark canal side and over to where Mike was waiting.

We started running toward the west end of the canal, bypassing joggers. Our feet touched the sidewalk in even strides, occasionally crunching the monstrous black cockroaches that scuttled across our way. I could feel their fat, hard bodies crack and explode, leaving large grease stains on the sun-bleached sidewalk. Our breaths came in shuddering gasps when we reached the end.

After a brief rest, we started back the mile and a half stretch. A hundred yards from the end, we raced, our arms and legs pumping to eke out speed from exhaustion. It was neck and neck and neck and neck. Then we burst through the imaginary finish line and coasted our heaving bodies to an agonizing stop.

"You did say all this will make the chicks go for me, didn't you?" said Mike.  "I'd hate to think it'd be wasted on my bathroom mirror."

"Mike, you've got to get a tan. You look like shark bait."

"My skin refuses to take a tan. And I have a feeling they don't go for Haoles, except maybe the surfers."

"Take it easy on the mahoo jokes. It makes people wonder."

"Man, what is this? You're so down on me all of sudden."

"I've been telling you these things for months."

"Sometimes I envy those mooks. They're so perfectly happy sitting under the trees all day, eating poi, getting drunk on that Primo shit and trying to pick fights with Haoles. Paradise!"

It was after seven, so when I opened the door, I expected Stan. It was Mike.

He walked past me and flopped onto the bed.

"I can't stay long, Mike. Stan's supposed to pick me up."

"Where you guys going?" Mike tried hard to sound nonchalant. "I haven't seen Fukuda in quite a while."

"One of his friends is throwing a party." 

"Think he'd mind if I came along?"  With a strange jesting innuendo. "I mean, if it's not one of those intimate affairs." 

"Well..."

Stan pounded on the door and opened it himself. 

"Hey, you ready to go, Bob?" he said, ignoring Mike. Mike looked at me. Stan stepped outside impatiently. 

"You want to ride home?" I said.

"So you think it'd be cool if I..."

"It's not even one of my friends who's giving the party."

We walked out to Stan's Camaro, Stan a pace or two ahead of us. 

"Where's it going to be?" asked Mike loudly. 

Stan pretended not to have heard. 

"The Red Lion," I said.  "Sure you wouldn't like a ride home?"

"Yeah, wanna ride home, Koretsky?"

Mike said nothing but climbed into the back seat. We rode in silence along Kuhio. Stan's center-parted shag hung over the side of his face, hiding his eyes. But I could see his mouth set humorlessly.

We circled the heart of Waikiki several times before Stan managed to squeeze into a space.

"Hey Stan, you think it's okay if I go in for one quick drink?"

"Gee, don't know, Mike."  We were stopped in front of the Red Lion. "What do you think, Bob?" he said skeptically. 

"Well, would they mind if he had a quick drink?" 

"Okay," said Stan in a tone that told me that the responsibility was all mine, and jerked open the heavy wooden door.

One of the side rooms was spilling over with boisterous laughter and the thick smell of pizza.

All were local boys with dark tans and shiny black hair parted in the middle. Stan introduced me to the friend who was getting married.  Then we sat down to wine cooler and pizza and joined in the mindless banter that passed for wit among the intoxicated. Mike's mahoo jokes were received with polite chuckles by a few and snide remarks by Stan.

"I told you not to bring him, dammit!" groused Stan. 

"He's not bothering anyone." 

"He's bothering me plenty.

Only a few strands of tentative conversation laced the air, and the pizzas had grown cold. Mike stood and announced that he was going home. Stan scowled at him. 

"Aren't you going to pay for your share?" he said. 

"What?" said Mike. 

Several pairs of dark eyes gazed at him with languid curiosity. 

"Sure, how much do I owe?"

"The fucking Haole," said Stan.  "He think we pay for stuff he eat?"

"Listen, man, I said I'd pay," said Mike. He unfolded a small crumpled wad of dollar bills. "I've got three on me."

Stan made a face and turned to the others. 

"This one Polak worse than da kine Pake!"  Several obliging laughs. 

"He's just putting you on, Mike," I said, and handed back his money.

As Mike started for the door, Stan put out a leg and made him trip and fall against the table. 

"You son of a bitch," said Mike, beet red and getting redder. 

Stan sprang up, pushing over his chair. 

"You're not on the mainland, white boy," he cried and threw a punch. I and a few others pulled the two apart. 

"Hey, I no lie one fucking brawl at dis party," said the host.

Several voices agreed that it was in bad taste and suddenly the room came alive again, blooming with gay sounds like the fake flowers that burst out of a magician's hat.

"Stay not, be gone!" beseeched Romeo. "Live and hereafter say a madman's mercy bid thee run away."

"I do defy thy conjuration," I declared, drawing my sword. An excited murmur rolled through the dark auditorium. Romeo looked like a drag queen with his smeared rouge and eyeliner. "And apprehend thee for a felon here!"

"Wilt thou provoke me?" Romeo drew as he sprang forward. "Then have at thee, Boy!" His rapier crashed down on mine. 

As I stumbled backward downstage, shouts came up from the audience. Parry, forward, two, three, one, five, thrust, parry, parry, four. The rapier flew out of my hand and skidded across the stage.  With a sobbing cry, Romeo thrust into my armpit and I dropped to my knees.

"I am slain!" I gasped, but the words were drowned out by the cheers. 

Following the ninth and final performance of our production, which had been appraised by the Honolulu advertiser as "sometimes wooden, often absorbing", we went out for a round of drinks at the Surfrider. Then two of the cars drove to an abandoned driveway near Diamond Head.

With the headlights snapped off, there was only the light of the stars and the glowing joints as we sat in a circle on a patch of grass. The cool sea breeze and the sound of the rushing surf below lulled me. Suddenly, Juliet moved over to squeeze in next to me. She was homecoming queen and the girlfriend of the student body president. And my heart thumped me back to life as she leaned her black liquid hair against me.

"Paris, you should have played Romeo," she whispered, her siren's voice melting me into the night. Her black eyes glowed softly in her childishly round face as she smiled.  "You never tried to talk to me once during the past two months."

"I didn't dare," I said truthfully. She looked at me as if I had been too forward with a compliment.

"It's a bit chilly, no?" She said, taking my hand. I nodded.

"Come on, do one OJ with me."  She pulled me up and led me to her car. 

A stoned fantasy, said my brain, but my heart beat too fast. To make sure I kissed her as she searched in her purse for the OJ.  A faint smile crossed her lips. Then they pursed and I thought she was requesting another kiss, but she filled the vague opening with a joint. The red glow inflamed her face and my desires.

The smoke rushed into my lungs and dissolved me into her eyes. She ran a finger along the ridge of my nose. 

"You have a nice face," she said. 

"You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

"Kiss me, Paris." Her hands pressed against my chest, slid up to my neck and flowed through my hair as we kissed. 

I kissed her lovely, flat nose that faded almost to nothing at the bridge. The constellations moved through a long arc in the rich, tropic sky. 

"You're a dream," I murmured. 

"Let me give you a massage." Her small hands pulled my head down to her lap and worked on the muscles at the base of my neck.

Someone rapped on the window. 

"Hey, Juliet," begged Romeo, his face a study of apology, embarrassment, and determination.  "We're all ready to leave."

"You guys take off in Lady Capulet's car," she said.  "We don't feel like leaving just yet."

There was a silence. 

"Remember Ken?" Ken Ogawa was the student body president and Romeo's close friend. 

"No, I don't," she said and continued massaging. 

"What's the matter with you, Juliet? Now come on!" pleaded the voice outside. But it drew no attention.

A few minutes later we heard the car rumble up the dirt road. 

"I wonder how they got all those people into the Datsun," she giggled. 

"Maybe one in the trunk and one strapped to the top?"

"Do you know, Paris, you and I are the only real people in the cast. The others are just actors." 

I laughed and she looked at me in surprise. When she'd realized what she had said, she laughed too. 

"I mean it seriously, though.  We respect ourselves. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," I said and thought I knew. 

"Good, then let's go down to the beach," she suggested. I didn't see the connection, but we stumbled down the narrow, overgrown path to the white sand that threw off a cold light of its own.

"Look how the waves glow green," she said, with outstretched arms, and dropped to her knees a few yards from the surf. I went over to the wet sand and scooped up a handful.

"It's the phosphorescent plankton." I showed her the tiny spicks of smoldering green light. Juliet lifted it with a finger and after studying it for a while, crushed it, spreading it into a green powder on her hand. 

"It's just powder," she said.  "Find me another." I did and she crushed that one too. Then she lay down on the sand. "I wonder if the stars are the same way."

"Crush one and see." 

She laughed and took my hand. I lay next to her. We stayed at the beach until the false dawn had come and gone. We were silent as she drove me to my apartment. The real dawn was breaking when she pulled over and turned to me.

"Ken and I are getting married right after graduation," she said with a forced smile. My heart sank. 

"Do you love him?"

"Your line is, 'I'm happy for you' or something like that, not 'do you love him.'" 

"Do you?" The loveliness of her face made me sick. 

"Don't be like that, Paris." 

"You don't even know my name." I opened the door and got out, slamming the door.

"Have fun in Korea, Robert," she said before driving off.

Falling out of love in the summertime, like flying a kite in a snowstorm or getting drunk on Dr. Pepper, wasn't impossible. The key was a dedicated imagination. By September I had imagined myself in love with a caddy, a waitress, and the girl who sold tickets at the base theater. It worked. One morning, I awoke sobered by surfeit knowing that never again would I gaze quite so wistfully at every raven-haired, midnight-eyed girl with a daringly diminutive nose. A good thing, too, because there are many, many of them in Korea. My heart was out of mortgage when I flew back to Hawaii.

"Some of my friends are thinking of forming a social club," said Stan, stirring his bowl of Zippy's saimin.  "Six guys from McKinley and six from Waipahu. We'll have cards printed up that we can pass out to cute chicks. What you think?"

"I nodded, munching on my teriyaki.

"You're not still involved with that Korean Club, are you?"

"They just elected me president. What's the matter with it anyway," I said, though I knew the answer. 

"I don't know why you want to be involved with those FOBs."

"What the hell do you think your grandparents were, Fukuda?" 

"You know you really don't fit in with those Koreans."

"I'm half Korean, remember?"

He never mentioned the social club again.

I was one of what everyone, snidely, called the Big Five, the members of our Junior Honors English class that hogged the discussions. The other four were Haoles — Mike, Whitney, Maggie Smith, and a long-haired dope dealer named Greg Zeller. One morning, Greg handed me a paper sack, his sleepy eyes gazing at me pinkly. There were several plastic bottles of tiny orange pills and a bag of grass.

Could you stash the stuff for a few days? My old man's been snooping around, and if I carry it on me the mokes'll rip me off."

"Sure." 

"You can have some, but be mighty careful with the orange microdots. There's 500 mics of acid in each tab. Enough in those bottles to blow the mind of half this fucking school."

After lunch, Mike and I agreed to split a tab out of curiosity. I hesitated — chromosome damage, recurring hallucinations, psychosis — before placing the innocuously small bit on my tongue. By the time the bell rang for class, we had nearly forgotten about it. 

"I guess we didn't take enough," I said, secretly a bit relieved. 

An alarm clock jangled inside my stomach during ethnic studies class. A floodlight switched on, washing the color out from everything and making me sweat.

"...an imperialist society," Miss Suda was saying.  "Without exploitation, there would be no raison d'être..."

"What? blurted out a fat Samoan guy.  "Who give one damn if we no get da kine raison fo' eat?" 

Aha, there was the cornucopia of the ridiculous! 

"Do you know what you're saying?" I cried, emotion welling irrepressibly.  "It's only raisins now, yes, but think for a moment. What will go next? Figs? Dates? Dried persimmons?" 

A few titters. 

"You're not aware that we're in real danger of being made into an underprivileged society. I mean, imagine, if you can, a life without prunes!"  I buried my face while Miss Suda explained raison d'être. 

"Gee Miss Suda," said the Samoan.  "No need fo' screw up tings with da kine foreign language. Simple English mo' bettah, yah?"

"You're crazy to miss out on your senior year," said Stan. 

"Sunshine and clean air is great for growing pineapples, sure, but who wants to sprout leaves?" 

"Aaah!" he said, waving his hand in mock disgust. "You banana."

"Oahu is going to look gorgeous from the plane. Gorgeous from the plane!"

The surf at Waikiki would look like the lace trimming on a blue wedding dress. And the jet will bank and bye-bye paradise!