Many of us have been told who we are, who we should be. Maybe we’ve been judged for the actions of our parents, the color of our skin, the way our eyes look, the accent someone tells us we have, or for not conforming to expectations of how our gender supposedly should act. Often this judgement comes from our families, our classmates, our colleagues. Sometimes from the towns we live in, our cities or states, our country. We can wonder where we belong, if anywhere, who we are, who we should be, who we want to be. Each of us goes on a journey, some expeditions full of more hurdles and roadblocks than others. Many of us hoping to filter out the noise, ask the hard questions, discover the truth, and stay true to what we find. But also to come to peace with the things we cannot change. Our three storytellers in today’s episode tell of such journeys. The Immigrant Story Live is a production of The Immigrant Story. This episode was hosted, produced, and edited by Meg Ritter. Storyboard was edited by Fran Silverman and Degen Larkin with audio post production done by Gregg Palmer. Our Executive Producer is Sankar Raman. All stories were part of I’m an American Live, a series of storytelling events showcasing Asian American voices, staged at the Patricia Reser Center for the Performing Arts in Beaverton, Oregon. If you want to catch up on our past live events, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel @theimmigrantstorylive. This episode is part of the Oregon Rises Above Hate series, generously funded by Anne Naito-Campbell. For more stories, visit the immigrantstory.org/manyroads, listen live at prp.fm, or stream us wherever you get your podcasts.
