Spotlight: The Tale of Snow White and American Assimilation
By: Yong-Yi Chiang
Diana Lu is a Shanghai-native who grew up in Los Angeles and returned to Shanghai 3 years ago for a guy (who’s now her husband). Before she moved back to Shanghai, she traveled and ate her way across 15 countries over two years of funemployment.
At our ‘Masks’ show Diana shared a story about the Snow White mask she wore for her very first Halloween in America…
Unravel: At the age of six, you immigrated to Los Angeles from Shanghai. What was your first impression of America? How did immigrating shape your idea of what home is?
Diana: My idea of home was less shaped by the immigration to a different country and more by the move to a new city as a teenager. For the first many years of my life in America, I lived in Beverly Hills, which is unusual not just for an immigrant kid, but for most American kids. We lived in a beautiful English Tudor house with a huge old oak tree in the front yard and a swimming pool in the back – as lovely as it was and as loved as I felt there, it wasn’t my home. Many years later, my parents bought their own home after lots of saving and struggling, and they are so proud of that. For me, the idea of home is flexible, especially as an expat. I’d probably define it now as a place I choose to be, invest in, and have people I care about around. Shanghai is my home right now.
Unravel: Your mother’s decision that you would wear the Snow White mask touches upon the discomfort and shame that comes with the pressure to assimilate. Did you think of the Snow White mask immediately when you heard this theme? Did you learn anything about yourself or your story through this process?
Diana: The theme ‘masks’ for the Halloween show immediately made me think of my first Halloween in America. My story has shifted in importance over time. When I was younger, it was just one of those childhood stories that everyone has – cute, funny, awkward – but there was a lingering icky feeling that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Then in college, I became more aware of what it meant to be a minority and the pervasiveness of white culture. That’s when I recognized the icky feeling as embarrassment, and I started to feel angry. Why did I have to wear this terribly uncomfortable mask in order to participate in Halloween? I guess it was okay for a little Chinese girl to pretend to be Snow White, but she’d have to wear the mask to play the part. For a long time, it felt symbolic of a yearning to be more white. But it was more about pretending and wanting to be something else, such as being financially secure or coming from a “good” family, because I didn’t have the space to be honest when I was young. This feeling extended to my mom who said I should wear the Snow White mask because she didn’t know what was expected of us so she didn’t want to upset anyone or seem “ungrateful.”
Unravel: You talk about how you spent a lot of time trying to downplay your Chinese-ness. What allowed you to ultimately find pride in your identity?
Diana: For me, finding pride in my identity didn’t mean embracing my Chinese-ness over anything else. I grew up in a multi-cultural, multi-generational, and multi-family household. I am so grateful for and proud of this unique blend. It was hard to explain as a kid and still not easy to explain now, but it’s a lot more natural to talk about it now. Being comfortable with myself wasn’t just an internal process; finding pride in my identity also meant finding people who could appreciate these different elements of my identity. An integral part of feeling proud is feeling understood.
Unravel: You mention that around the time of your surrogate grandma’s passing you made the decision to drop all of your masks. How did you do this and do you ever find yourself “wearing masks” today?
Diana: A few months after my Grandma Rosie passed away, we moved to another city in Los Angeles which had a much more diverse population in comparison to that of Beverly Hills. I felt like people knew what it meant to be an immigrant, to be working class, to be a minority, to be an Asian-American. I’m better at recognizing when I’m consciously choosing to adapt and change and when I’m pretending to be something that is not true to me. I really try to minimize the latter, because you can only “wear a mask” for so long before you feel like you’re suffocating.
Unravel: What did the experience of sharing your story in front of an audience mean to you? How did you feel afterwards?
Diana: This was my second time sharing a story at Unravel. I really enjoyed this one, because the story came so naturally. I felt like I was sharing a very important piece of myself, and I had the confidence of knowing that the audience would accept it with grace and gratitude. That’s what Unravel Live offers for me – a space to be honest.
Photos by Alejandro Scott
Formatted by Joanne Cattermole