When you picture St. Patrick’s Day, you typically imagine one of the biggest celebrations of Irish heritage. People decked out from head to toe in green, shamrocks galore, extravagant parades equipped with Irish step dancers, and masses of people flooding streets and restaurants all fueled by their mutual love of being Irish.
As someone who is proud of their Irish culture, I’d fit into that image in your head.
Well…kind of.
Being half-Irish and half-Asian, this holiday looks a little bit different for me.
I often find myself stuck in this middle ground between my two races every day of the year, not just March 17. Too Asian to be white, too white to be Asian. Struggling to decide which box to check off for my race on forms when I’m only allowed to check off one. There are rarely implications for choosing one race or the other, but there is something unsettling and distressing about having to present yourself as only how you partially identify.
Society is constantly trying to fit people into a singular category. For people who rightfully fit in more than one, it forces them to make a decision they shouldn’t have to. American culture depicts St. Patrick’s Day as a day of celebration, but only for those who are fully Irish and white. In only partially applying to that description here lies my choice: forego my Asian culture for a day and fit the image society desires, or let my Asian culture be the reason I don’t get the full extent of the festivities.
This isn’t to say there is no option that exists between these two choices. However, how that comes to fruition in reality is being the “Irish Asian” celebrating the holiday; and to be considered the novelty in that situation is nothing short of undesirable.
I love both cultures equally. They make me who I am and the fact that I am both is something I hold incredibly dear to my heart. With that said, there is absolutely no way I could abandon my Asian side in order to experience a more “authentic” holiday. It would go the same way with my Irish side if the roles were reversed.
Thus, my St. Patrick’s Day is probably just slightly off from the version in your mind. I will be adorned in green and shamrocks, watch parades on TV, eat corned beef just like everyone else. Except my corned beef meal comes in the form of corned beef and rice, a common Filipino breakfast. Some may not consider this an authentic celebration and I’d be lying if I said these thoughts didn’t weigh on me during the holiday. But, there’s no changing who I am, and whether it’s accepted or not, this is my St. Patrick’s Day.
At the end of the day, St. Patrick’s Day at its core is another day meant for fun. Not being Irish has not and will never stop people from enjoying the day as their own. So, yes, the holiday is mine and I love to celebrate it. However, it will never fully be mine by society’s standards. It hasn’t and will never be that way for me.
Therefore, despite the endless and extreme contradictions that come with being a person of mixed race on March 17 and always, I will never deny the love I have for this holiday nor what it means to me and the culture that I consider myself lucky to identify with.
IMAGE TAKEN from Pexels.com
