A few weeks ago, my cousin, Kouang and I were jokingly discussing how we should start a Laotian group on campus since there are none as of now. We laughed at how it would be funny if someone named Takashi Matsumoto started it. We wouldn’t even know where to begin; I don’t know anything about Laotian culture and the only words I know are sabaidee and tam mak hung.

Takashi Matsumoto is the name I use frequently, but my cousins and family all call me Gao. It just feels weird if they call me Takashi. Matsumoto is the last name I use when I write my papers and submit a resume, but my birth certificate says “Vang” and “Thalangsy”. Wang is the last name my relatives refer to when addressing my family and me, but I’ve never used it in the public sphere.

I remember when I entered first grade in Japan; my name tag read “Wang/Vang Gao Zhi” as my classmates tried to pronounce my name with difficulty. I was the only non-Japanese kid in the room. A few seconds later, the teacher quickly called me out and said that there was a mistake in my name tag: It should have read “Takashi Ou”, which was my last name at that time.

My last name “Matsumoto” was given to me 14 years ago when we finally became naturalized Japanese citizens. It was chosen so we could be more Japanese. It just became one form of assimilation to the dominant society. At that time, I didn’t even question why my name kept getting changed and didn’t bother to care; I just wanted to go home and read manga from the nearby bookstore.

Growing up in the US, I always thought I was Japanese. I had a Japanese name, I spoke Japanese and I was from Japan. So doesn’t that automatically make me Japanese?

I remember a time in middle school when racist white and Mexican boys called me and other Asians “nip” while at the same time asking me for help with their homework. I remember the time when my friends were confused because my cousins were not Japanese. Or the time when my ultra-conservative high school history teacher kept looking at me when we discussed Pearl Harbor and how dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was a “good” thing since it ended the war, while tokenizing me to be the expert on Japan just because she thought I was Japanese.

Sometimes I wonder if it was destiny that brought most of my family out of Laos to be reunited once again in the US. Did Nixon order the dropping of over a million tons of bombs in Southeast Asia so that my family can escape to the refugee camps in Thailand? Was my family destined to resettle in Japan instead of the US just like every other refugee we pretend to know about? Were my sister and I supposed to be born in Japan?

Although I was glad that I took Professor Yen Espiritu’s Ethnic Studies class this quarter at UCSD, and for the first time in 21 years I felt like I was learning something directly related to my identity, I still feel I know nothing about Laos and Southeast Asia. I respect her for acknowledging that in the context of Southeast Asian studies very few books have been written about Cambodia and Laos compared to Vietnam. So far, the only books I’ve read about Laos and the Hmong are written by white authors, who exoticize the culture into something that only cater to the white public. It’s just so frustrating to see how the memories and histories of Laos are erased in the US. At the same time, I am glad that there are scholars out there in those fields like Seng and Ma Vang.

I always admired and envied the different Asian Pacific Islander (API) organizations at the UC San Diego campus that collectively work to raise cultural/social/political awareness of their own ethnic identities. I know that the Vietnamese Student Association, Kaibigang Pilipino, Nikkei Student Union, Chinese American Student Association, Thai Culture Club, Cambodian Student Association, Sangam and other API organizations put on amazing cultural shows every year. Maybe that’s why I wanted to help create Southeast Asian Collective (SEAC) with the other students at UC San Diego—not for the sake of cultural shows, but to address the important issues that Southeast Asians have been facing.

“So, what’s your ethnic identity?” This was the question that I got asked so many times while I was at the Southeast Asian intercollegiate summit in January 2008. I don’t blame people for asking me this since that summit was meant for Southeast Asian-identified peoples and my name tag didn’t clearly reflect that identity. Honestly, I don’t know how to answer that anymore.

My ethnic identity is fluid and always seems to be changing. Over the years, when filling out the race/ethnicity box, I’ve checked: Japanese, Chinese, Laotian, Chinese-Laotian or sometimes just all three. I always hated filling out my race/ethnicity category. I feel like I have to be limited only to these boxes. By just claiming myself as Japanese I ignore the important memories and stories of my family.

My transnational or transethnic identity has shaped me for who I am to this day. Like what Bryan Thao Worra, the Laotian-American writer, said, “If we don’t write or leave anything behind, then nothing will be found.”