race, ethnicity, identity

These words are very formidable to define. i'd really like to use this entry to describe how i use these words to define myself. My mother first of all, is half Korean and half Japanese. My father is Half Mongolian and half Japanese. So when people ask me my race, I say Asian. I don't want to say all that one people usually expect a one word answer for the question. At the same time, Asian is a very low satisfactory answer, people usually ask after: "what do you mean?"
At the same time, I have no idea what to say my ethnicity is. I don't have a single Asian culture to relate with and I was born in America. I am culturally American (Minnesotan to be exact). On top of all that, I don't have a sufficient definition of ethnicity, but even if I did I would still not be able to tell you what mine is.
My identity however, is something I do know. Although race and ethnicity go into identity, my definition of identity is more self instilled. I identify myself with how I think of myself, my art, my writings, my style, the people I love, and much more. Identity to me is a concept beyond race and ethnicity, beyond social security and sid numbers, beyond my physical appearance. It's a part of my life that the sculpting of both myself and my environment shows. It's a part of my life that I choose to have control over, something other people may impose upon me but in the end is something only I can fully know.
In other words, I don't know my race, I don't know my ethnicity, but I do know who I am.

At the same time, I do think it's important to have a culture to identify with. I have three, all of them which I am not very familiar with anyways. This is a question I have to answer throughout the course of my life, I definitely need to travel to Asian and learn the languages better. Hopefully I'll do that after college.