I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, but my parents are American.

Not just American, but American. No tacked-on modifiers. White American.

My mother’s family is from a moderately-sized city in West Virginia, while my father hails from Detroit, Michigan. If you have to break it down — and you never do, not if you’re white — my mother is a mix of German and Welsh, while my father is at least half Swedish. His father, a sculptor from Stockholm, Sweden, is the most recent immigrant in my family line; Sten Jacobsson didn’t set foot on Ellis Island soil until the 1930's.

I am also American — just American.

Not Asian American, although the term is frequently foisted upon me, mostly by self-identifying Asian Americans. I hardly consider myself to be Asian, despite the fact that I grew up in Japan and that my hair and facial features might seem to suggest differently.

I don’t reject my Asian heritage; I simply do not have one. I can reject it no more than I can reject my Kenyan heritage (I am in no part Kenyan), or my Sri Lankan heritage (I am in no part Sri Lankan), or my Martian heritage (I am in no part Martian). None of my identity is rooted, or even tangibly connected to, my supposed Vietnamese ethnic background. Yes, supposed — I was adopted when I was five days old. At the end of the day, who really knows?

I cannot even identify with the shared notion of “growing up Asian in America,” because I did not grow up as an Asian in America. I grew up as an other — but a comfortable other, in a community of others. I was blissfully unaware of any and all stereotypes typically imposed on Asians, Asian Americans, and non-white Americans, until well into my college years. It’s not my place to co-opt the experience of Asian Americans and pretend like I know what struggles and prejudices and culture experiences they may or may not share.

It’s a long story — as you can probably tell — but it boils down to this: I am a third culture kid. That is, I’m the child of ex-patriots who spent my developmental years in a culture other than my parents’. On top of that, I am adopted, so my parents’ culture does not technically match my face. I am not fully of my parents’ culture, but I am even less — despite spending 18 years there — of my host country’s culture.

I exist somewhere in a third culture, a culture constructed by other children like me to help define our place as others, outsiders. But outsiders who comfortably coexist with each other and our otherness. I certainly have more in common with third culture kids who grew up halfway across the world, and whose parents are culturally Brazilian, than I do with people from my home country or my host country.

My biggest culture shock came when I moved to the United States at age 19. I lived in Manhattan — the big city mitigated the shock ever so slightly. But never before had I interacted with so many people who didn’t understand who I was or where I came from.

At the same time, the only country I’ve ever felt patriotically connected to is the United States. Perhaps that’s because my passport says I’m American. Or maybe it’s because my native tongue (and, let’s be serious, only fluent tongue) is English. Or, more likely, it’s because my entire family is American. Whatever the reason, the United States is simultaneously my home country and the most foreign country I’ve ever lived in.

So what am I, then? The answer isn’t simple, and it isn’t static.

I can tell you what I’m not: I’m not Japanese. I’m not Vietnamese. I’m not French, or Thai, or Egyptian. I’m not Asian. I’m not Asian American. I’m not white, but I’m also not not white. I’m not a banana or a Twinkie or “white washed.” (I can’t be — I’m not Asian.)

I can’t tell you exactly what I am. So I open up my passport, which is the most official document I possess. And there it is: I’m American. Just American.