Asian Americans, your mission should you choose to accept is to integrate and be assimilated into American society. (We’re 15 days into Asian American Heritage Month, but I’ve been terribly busy.)

CNN’s Asian American Journey homepage has this poll:

What do you think is the state of the Asian-American community today?
o Fully integrated into American society
o Progressing but challenges remain
o Still a long way to go

Here are some definitions for the furriners:

in·te·grate [in-ti-greyt]

4. to give or cause to give equal opportunity and consideration to (a racial, religious, or ethnic group or a member of such a group): to integrate minority groups in the school system.

5. to combine (educational facilities, classes, and the like, previously segregated by race) into one unified system; desegregate.

6. to give or cause to give members of all races, religions, and ethnic groups an equal opportunity to belong to, be employed by, be customers of, or vote in (an organization, place of business, city, state, etc.): to integrate a restaurant; to integrate a country club.

Well, I guess I’m down with that. Except it does cause me to wonder exactly who is doing the giving or causing to give. I’m pretty sure it’s not me and mine.

But wait! There’s more!

10. to meld with and become part of the dominant culture.

We all know that being “Americanized” and wiping out every vestige of yellow ethnicity is important. Except Oops! can’t take off that skin. Maybe Asian Americans can be given honorary American (white) status. Shhh … be quiet and get out the forks, please.

When I was growing up I hated finding a definition where I then had to look up the words used in the definition. So as a courtesy to you gentle readers, here’s the definition for “meld”:

meld [meld]

1. to merge; blend.

Ah, the old melting pot theory! But this begs the question of whether brown folk can really blend. Or if, as in the one-drop rule, we end up turning the pot brown too. Maybe that’s why so many white Americans are terrified at the thought.

Another CNN story starts with this lede:

Being Asian and American is often a complex balancing act.

The challenge for millions of people is managing to assimilate into American society while maintaining the principles of cultural heritage.

So is this solely a challenge for people of Asian descent? And what’s with this “assimilate” anyway?

as-sim-i-late [uh-sim-uh-leyt]

2. to bring into conformity with the customs, attitudes, etc., of a group, nation, or the like; adapt or adjust: to assimilate the new immigrants.

8. to conform or adjust to the customs, attitudes, etc., of a group, nation, or the like: The new arrivals assimilated easily and quickly.

5. To absorb (immigrants or a culturally distinct group) into the prevailing culture.

Who exactly is going to bring those troublesome Asian Americans into conformity? Or do they have to conform themselves? And what happens then? What if Asian Americans don’t want to be absorbed to become one with the Borg?

I get annoyed when I hear white Americans making declarations about how “Americanized” other people are. And you often hear about white parents attempting to do things so that their adopted kids will “fit in.” Immigrants, too, probably want to “fit in.”

But just to use language as an example, you can try your hardest to learn English and find that people will mock you. Monolingual English speakers say, “Learn English!” with disdain, as if they could speak another language. Somebody try plopping them down in a non-English environment and tell them to try to forge their way. The more I think about it, the more respect I have for my non-English-speaking relatives. How did they manage to earn a living and fight racism and learn English all simultaneously?

But even if you do speak English fluently, you still get mocked–because that furrin face of yours will never assimilate. It will never blend or meld. It will always be culturally distinct. So maybe my relatives should have worried a little less about my “fitting in” and should have gone ahead and let me speak my mother’s tongue. Because losing it has been a loss that grows and changes as I discover what it might have meant.

Maybe the process of integrating into society should be less about molding the immigrant and denying the self and more about changing the environment. Maybe “fitting in” wouldn’t be so crucial if not fitting in didn’t mean being subject to abuse.