“I hope that being an artist remains possible for me” – An Interview With Michi Zaya

Courtesy of Michi Zaya.

Michi Zaya (any pronouns) is a theatre director, actor, projection designer, and creative technologist – a storyteller of all trades. Born in the US to Mongolian parents, Zaya spent a brief year in their early childhood in Mongolia before relocating to Mongolia again at around nine years old. Moving back to the US for college, they are now based in New York. As part of IMPULSE’s conversation series, Migration in Dialogue, Zaya unpacks the complexities of cultural integration and national belonging.

JW: I was looking at your website before this interview and saw that you described yourself as a Mongolian theatre artist. Do you consider yourself more Mongolian than American? Why or why not?

MZ: I've been struggling back and forth with this. I spent so much of my youth in Mongolia; my family and culture are rooted there. Being Mongolian is a huge part of me. But in terms of nationality, I am a US citizen. I've been in New York for the past seven years – New York is very much becoming my home. During my first few years here, I felt like a Mongolian person bringing my culture to the US. But the longer I stay, the more I'm confronted with identifying as a “category” of American, aka as a Mongolian-American. It’s scary because I’m almost judging this American identity. There's a level of acceptance on this journey. 

JW: What’s the source of this unease or “judgment” you described?

MZ: I think the term is “third-culture kids” – children raised internationally or between cultures. You are being bullied for where you come from no matter where you go. In Mongolia, for instance, being an American was associated with a lot of stigma like being rich, impolite, etc. To fit in and be a normal teenager, I felt like I needed to lean into the Mongolian national identity. 

To this day, sometimes I wish I didn’t have an American accent. When people meet me and I tell them I'm from Mongolia, they are always surprised. They're like, but why do you sound so American? And I have to explain that I was born here, blah, blah. It’s so funny – I really wish I had a more Mongolian accent. 

JW: Do you need a visa to enter Mongolia?

MZ: Literally 10 minutes before this call, I was frantically checking my passport to see if my Mongolian visa was still active (it has unfortunately expired). It’s weird because I feel like I belong to Mongolia, but I still have to enter on a tourist visa. This one time when I was around 12, my family and I were going to Hong Kong, and we only realized that my Mongolian visa had expired as we were leaving the country. They told us I had 11 days to get my new visa when I got back. That was really intense for me as a child.

JW: You mentioned learning about immigration from family members at a young age – what was it like? What did they say about it?

MZ: I am what is referred to as an “anchor baby,” a term I only recently learned in an immigration law and policy class. An anchor baby is a child born in the US to immigrant parents, essentially to help the family stay in the country. This might mean faster access to visas or the eventual promise of family sponsorship for entry into the US. 

I left the US when I was about nine or ten, but by that time, I was already familiar with terms like “green card” and “visa” because they were constantly talked about in my community. I remember my parents telling me, “When you turn 21, you're going to get us green cards.” I even recall my grandmother explaining the privilege I had due to my US citizenship. She was talking about how much she wanted a green card so that she could travel back and forth. When I got a new digital camera as a kid, my aunt and uncle needed to borrow it for a week to take photos for their green card application. It was this big, important thing. My child mind didn’t grasp these complex terms, so I imagined a green card as just an ID that was literally green, and I was like, oh that sounds easy to get.

Even before I could spell my name, I knew I had this responsibility to help my family get green cards when I was older. Now that I’m 25, my family’s priorities have shifted – they no longer live in the US. My mother has only occasionally asked me for help with her paperwork. It’s strange because I spent so much of my childhood expecting to lead my family into the country, and now it’s just not as important to them. 

JW: Do you feel differently about your family after you realized you were an anchor baby?

MZ: I’ve never asked my family directly, “Did you have me just so you could stay in the US?” I don’t know how planned I was, and I’ve never really sought out that answer. But the clues are there. I don’t feel differently about my family because of it, though. As a child, I was already aware of the situation, so learning the term “anchor baby” was just putting a name to something I already knew. I don’t judge my family for it. Instead, I see it as an interesting connection to the pressures of being a US immigrant.

Now, when I talk to my international friends, I feel like I can relate to their visa issues, even though it doesn’t personally affect me. There’s almost a sense of survivor’s guilt that comes with it, where I find myself wishing my friends didn’t have to struggle with these challenges.

JW: How has this experience affected you as a person and as an artist?

MZ: As an artist, I feel like I have a different perspective on language and expression. I have worked on a few projects with friends who are also international and immigrants in the US. These projects focused a lot on language, home culture, and adjusting to life in the US and the English language.

Having spent significant parts of my life in both countries, it's been an ongoing process of “catching up.” For instance, I know very little about US history – I often have to rely on friends who grew up in the US for things that seem very relevant or obvious but are completely lost on me. People here know the names of past presidents, major policies, and even cultural things like TV shows that I wouldn’t have had access to in Mongolia. This sometimes makes me feel behind and ignorant, even though it's not necessarily my fault.

Also, as anyone who’s been to therapy knows, our childhood experiences shape who we are as adults. I recently realized that my irrational reaction to neighbors as an adult likely stems from my childhood in Mongolia. I lived on a mountain for two years with no neighbors—just cows—and then moved to a city where I was constantly bothered by annoying little boys in the neighborhood. Now, the typical unpleasant things that neighbors do set me off more than they should. It’s funny how those early experiences still affect me today.

Photo of Michi Zaya in Mongolia. 

JW: This is a bigger question, but what do concepts like nationality or national belonging mean to you?

MZ: For me right now, nationality feels increasingly political. Having the ability to vote while many of my immigrant friends do not makes nationality feel even more significant. 

When I consider nationality from a non-political standpoint, I think about social culture and the way communities interact. For instance, when I first came here, I noticed how Americans could go to stores in their pajamas and feel comfortable, which surprised me. In Mongolia, you’d probably put on makeup before going to the grocery store because you might run into someone. During my first few years here, I would wear a full face of makeup every day, plan my outfits, and wear good-looking but uncomfortable shoes. But now, I dress much more comfortably—like a teenage boy, in a way. My style has changed so much, and my idea of what it means to look good and feel good has shifted completely. In Mongolia, the ideal was to be pale, skinny, and fashionable, but here, I focus more on feeling cool in my own way.

JW: Do you see the upcoming election influencing your plans, career, or personal life? 

MZ: As we've learned over the past four or five years, you can't really plan for anything. I think there's no way to prepare for one outcome or another because anything could happen. 

The upcoming election definitely feels a bit scary. But I constantly remind myself that people live under strict or even fascist governments all the time, and they still survive. They continue to make art, fall in love, and have pets. Whether or not I should stay in the US is less important to me than how I adapt to my circumstances. There are definitely times I fantasize about running away to another country where my problems would be different. However, leaving won't solve my problems; it will just give me different ones. I feel comfortable staying here as long as I can confront my US-based problems and continue to live, work, and feed my cat Hobie.

Photo of Hobie. Courtesy of Michi Zaya.

JW: What do you wish policymakers knew about immigrants? 

MZ: I think if policymakers had a better understanding of why immigrants move to the US and choose to stay, it could lead to more informed decisions. The common reasons are often cited as better opportunities or more jobs, but there's so much more nuance. Some people who were respected doctors in their home countries might end up doing hard, intensive labor earning minimum wage in the US.

In the absence of a strong dialogue between immigrant communities and US policymakers, it often feels like immigrants are left out of the conversation about immigration proper. The only people who vouch for them are first-generation Americans or US citizens from immigrant families. But if you go back far enough, almost all US citizens who aren’t Indigenous have immigrant roots.

I also wish it were easier to move in and out of the country. This would reduce the fear that surrounds navigating the complicated immigration system. In countries with more open access to their neighbors, the reasons for immigration often seem more straightforward—like finding communities where you feel involved and connected. For example, in Europe, people move freely between countries with little thought beyond simply wanting to be in a particular place. If people could come and go more freely, immigration might not be seen as such a heavy, scary topic.

Photo of Hobie. Courtesy of Michi Zaya.

JW: Where do you feel at home?

MZ: This has changed a lot for me over time. When I was younger, the classic answer was, "Home is where my mom is," and since my mom is in Mongolia, that’s where I considered home. I catch myself saying things like, “I'm going home for the first time in a few years.” But now I feel like i have multiple homes. I feel at home in New York City with my cat. It’s very comforting knowing that I’m surrounded by artists, and so many things that are important to my identity are normalized – being a theater artist, being experimental, being queer, and just being the type of person that I am – which wouldn’t be the case in Mongolia. 

But the definition of home is so big and nebulous. For me, home is really where I feel safe and comfortable. At the end of the day, I think whatever this being that I am is experiencing defines what home is. Maybe this will change, but for now, home is being comfortable on my bed with my cat in Brooklyn. 

JW: Anything you’d like to add?

MZ: As a minority within a minority in the US—being Asian and Mongolian specifically—I sometimes worry about being an artist without an audience. It feels isolating because of how uncommon my background is within the artist community. I have a few other Mongolian collaborators, but I can count them on my fingers. In contrast, some of my international friends have full communities and neighborhoods centered around their culture, which helps them find an audience more easily. 

I have stories to tell, but sometimes I’m scared that no one will listen. I hope that being an artist remains possible for me. This also circles back to the earlier questions about identity, particularly the American part of my identity. I live here, and so does my audience—maybe that's the connection I need to focus on; even if others don't share my exact identity, we can still relate to each other in terms of culture, home, and navigating this massive, complex country we've all ended up in.

The interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

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