Lexington High School  is a highly diverse community—as is the town that it’s a part of. Over the past decade , the town of Lexington has become a majority minority; 

 the combined population of minority groups has exceeded the population of the dominant (majority) group.

The steady influx of immigrants from international countries joining the LPS school system has increased in recent years.  The immigrant experience is common without our community, making students feel disconnected between cultures and conflicted over their identity. 

In her 2021 single Split, Indonesian artist NIKI (real name Nicole Zefanya) conveys the conflicting emotions she carries from having to divide her identity into aspects that match whichever country she is currently living in:  Indonesia or the US. Having been born in Indonesia and attended high school there, she experienced quite the culture shock after moving to the US to study music at a university in Tennessee. It was also around then when she signed to her record label, 88rising, famous for having notable Asian artists on their roster. 

Throughout her song, NIKI discusses many struggles she’s had to face with “splitting” her identity. A few of these include:

• Different beauty standards

1. “It’s a West Coast winter, sun’s still a furnace / So I keep tanning, just never on purpose / I’m saturated in equal parts sun and doubt”
2. Having a tan body is all the rage in America, yet in East Asian countries, having pale, almost white skin is one of the most desirable traits to have as your appearance. Given that she now lives in sunny Los Angeles, California, NIKI talks about how her skin is always tanning—attractive in America but not in her birth country.

• Environment

1. “And there, it’s raining, while here, it’s dry as bone / Kinda wish I knew what I meant when I’d say, “I miss home””
2. Jakarta has a rather tropical monsoon climate, while Los Angeles is pretty hot year round and doesn’t rain often. Both places have been her home at one point, except she now has trouble associating which place she feels most herself at.

• Independence 

1. “And where I live, they believe you only have yourself / But where I’m from, you’re taught to be somebody else”
2. This line could possibly allude to the common East Asian value of filial piety, which concerns always respecting and repaying your elders—whereas in America there is a societal expectation to become totally independent once you reach 18 years of age.

NIKI has always struggled with separating her identity in the US from her identity in Jakarta. Given the international barrier and distance between the countries, she finds herself constantly adapting to different environments, sometimes intentionally hiding a certain part of herself in order to better adjust. 

Towards the end, the song comes to an abrupt staccato—the music cuts out on the last lyric and all that’s left is her soft voice. Instead of imposing a sense of closure on the listeners, it suggests that the narrative has been left unfinished on purpose. Though the artist herself is unsure of the ending, she is willing to let her story play out on its own, and see where it takes her.

Perhaps you, the reader—after listening to this song—will now have a new appreciation for home,  wherever that may be for you.

“Wish I were on either side of the forеign wall / Oh, always part of me missing, but no one sees a differеnce / ‘Cause I split them all”