Ai fen is my Other-ed Self.

Ai fen is my Chinese name, given to me at birth as a counterpart to my first, Polish name. Ai-fen is spelt with a hyphen, but I have decided to omit it. In doing so I refuse the simplicity of hyphenated identities so often put upon the children of immigrants. To be hyphenated is to be implicated in a play of both prioritization and afterthought. Our identities are never so straightforward as to be placated with a hyphen. What they require is space.