When I was a kid, my dad told me I should learn to speak Mandarin. “You look Chinese,” he said bluntly. “It doesn’t matter that you are born in Australia, people will assume you are Chinese.” I brushed this off naively—I could be and do whatever I wanted, and I didn’t want to learn Mandarin. I wanted to watch Australian Idol and play video games and read Harry Potter (again). I assimilated, and I assimilated …