Who Am I?

I am a 5'7", 16-year-old Taiwanese girl with dark brown hair, yellow skin, and brown eyes. When someone looks at me, they'll probably think "Oh, she's a pretty tall Asian girl." My physical features, my genetic traits, are what define me as an Asian, which is essentially my race. Race is an indication of what you were born with; it is unchangeable. I can't wake up one morning and decide I want to be a white or black girl, right?  I will always have to check the box "Asian" on my standardized tests and official documents. Besides race. humans are identified in another aspect. That would be ethnicity. What is your nationality? What religion do you practice? Those questions fall under ethnicity. Ethnicity comes with choice. A person can learn and alter their ethnicity throughout their life. I can choose to devote myself to Christianity one day and learn about the traditions and customs of this religion. I can also convert to Buddhism if I happen to change my mind and be enlightened by the new set of beliefs. So basically, race is something "assigned" to an individual, while ethnicity is "self-identified."

Now, after acknowledging what race and ethnicity is, I now wonder why do those things I stated above define what race and ethnicity are. Why am I Asian? Because I'm Taiwanese. Why am I a Taiwanese? Because my both my parents were born in Taiwan. Why are my parents Taiwanese? Because they live in the country Taiwan. Why are the people living in the country Taiwan known as Taiwanese citizens? Because a mass of people came together to claim independence, drew their borders around their newly found country, and began calling themselves Taiwanese. Hence, my nationality is a social construct. These classifications were created by society itself. In volume II of Maus, Art questions his wife Francoise, "I mean in my book what kind of animal should I make you?" She is a French, but she converted to Judaism. It was society who pushed the notion that those who had didn't have brown hair and blue eyes and practiced Judaism were Jews. Due to this, Francoise claims that she should also be a mouse, and Art evidently draws her that way.
All of these definitions, classifications, and identifications are all drawn by society. People come to a general agreement to create "order." This allowed people to understand each other better, but gave people power over each other, as well. But the thing is, human perception and belief are always fluctuating so nothing is truly set. If we take off our masks and remove the binds that define us, we all are just human beings. However, no one can be sure about who they are because for all we know, it's possible we can wake up one day as a different person, labeled with a different name.