But fashion has always been the focal point of my ambivalence. I remember as a child begging my mother not to make me wear the shirts that my aunts and uncles would send to me as gifts from China, the ones that featured cartoons like Sun Wukong and Doraemon, complete with Chinese speech bubbles, instead of Disney princesses. I worried the other kids would make fun of me. But even as I got older, and those mean kids grew into more tolerant teens, I still resisted wearing them. It all felt too on the nose. Remember several years ago when those Chinese slippers became a mini sensation? I never asked for a pair of my own. While my classmates scrambled to find “silk pajamas” like the ones Lindsay Lohan wore in Parent Trap, I never told them that I had a pair at home, still in its wrapping. While I am a proud Chinese-American, I chose to wear my culture on my sleeve through the work I do, the company I keep, and the way I spend my time. But I’ve always drawn the line at clothes.

My friend Nancy, a Korean-American, grew up in a diverse neighborhood in Southern California and has witnessed my fashion neuroses on multiple occasions. Each time I’ve asked her, “Does this make me look too Asian?” she has always answered me with one of her epic eye rolls. “I guess I don’t find there to be anything shameful about looking ‘too Asian,’” she explained over email. “I might also not be sensitive to it, because I grew up in a place where Asians were an overrepresented minority, but being Asian has never had any connotations of being different. I rarely got confused for someone who wasn’t born here.”

When I first met Nancy in college, she wore a lot of thigh-high knee socks and pleated miniskirts, two of my personal style no-nos — I never wanted anyone thinking about Japanese schoolgirls when they looked at me. Still, the fetish lore hasn’t escaped her: “I think most Asian women, including myself, are concerned about playing into some sort of creepy man’s hyper-sexualized fantasy,” she told me. “I worry about that more than looking like an immigrant.” But Nancy knows — as any Asian girl knows — pervy comments will come regardless, if you’re wearing knee socks or sweatpants. Nancy’s dealt with this by developing a very polite, very effective no-thanks-boy-bye technique. The net result: She doesn’t allow the expectations and presumptions of others to influence or dictate her fashion choices.