Like Eileen Gu, People With Mixed Roots Are Tired of Being Told to Pick a Side

[Jilly_in_VA]

For China’s star athlete Eileen Gu, “either-or” isn’t in her vocabulary.

Born to a Chinese mother and American father, the 18-year-old skier grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area while straddling the Pacific. While in the U.S., she took piano, surfing, and skiing lessons. Come summer, she’d travel to Beijing to study for the Mathematical Olympiad and the SAT.

Years later, she’d find herself in the same city representing China at the Winter Olympics and at the center of a debate over her nationality and identity. “When I’m in the U.S., I’m American, but when I’m in China, I’m Chinese,” she has often said.

Gu’s evident rejection of identifying with only one nation has angered some critics. Though the Olympian has so far deflected questions about her dual citizenship—which is not recognized in Chinese law—conservative outlets have called her a “traitor” to the United States. In an interview last week, ex-UN ambassador Nikki Haley urged the skier to pick a side. “You’re standing for freedom or you’re standing for human rights abuses. There is no in-between,” the former Trump appointee said.

The badgering Gu has faced about her citizenship is a shared sentiment for many who don’t fit into a binary.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kb7ye/eileen-gu-olympics-dual-nationality-china-us
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Of course Nimrata Randhawa is on the other side, pretty much ignoring her ancestry if not outright denying it