Alexander Chee

But I think what I learned that summer was the way in which, because of my being mixed race, half Korean, half white, I could be mistaken for any number of kind of a person, including Mexican.

And when I was there, they would often say to me,

When I was introduced to someone, they would say, oh, you're mestizo, which is a word that means mixed, basically.

And in America, for whatever reason at that time, my identity was so confusing to people.

And...

it was exhausting as a kid to always have to be explaining, to always, you know, have, when I would go to visit friends' homes, their parents in their kitchen at some point would say, so, how did your parents meet?

Which is actually not a question that most people get asked.

And I didn't realize that for a very long time.

I knew the story, so I would tell the story.

And it was this little theater act that I did all over that town in Maine and then in other places.

Well, I think in some ways it almost felt as if they were asking, like, how do you exist?

Why are you here?

How did this happen?

There was some way in which... Yes, that is funny.

Sorry, that was funny.

It just seemed so improbable to them.

And it was a relief to be in Mexico and to feel like I had a simple identity that everyone understood.

Well, I don't think it's quite... It's certainly not a... I don't think I would call it a novel, exactly.

It's an autobiographical...

mixed genre kind of, I think we would call it mixed genre now.