Category Archives: China

Peace Through Awareness

Peace Through Awareness

“I am not a virus.” That was the message on many of the signs to call out anti-Asian hate. Asian hate crimes during Corona have rocked our country back and forth, but even before Corona pandemic came into our world, Anti-Asian hate crimes existed. We’re living in a time of change, with black people getting killed, Corona virus, Asian hate, and to top that all off, Russia’s war in Ukraine. Peace is hard to come by these days.

Back when Corona started, my mom talked to me about Asian hate crimes. She said that President Donald Trump called the virus “the China virus.” It was basically his way of saying, “Oh, this pandemic is all because of Chinese people.” That made me feel sad, but at that time I felt that there wasn’t really anything I could do.   

Unlike me, other people were already doing rallies, and a few people had formed an organization called Stop AAPI Hate. News spread even faster than Corona virus. A few months later, my family went to an Anti-Asian Hate support rally in Fort Lee, and we heard people speak about the hate crimes. My parents had heard about it from our friend. It was on a field, with a big “Be Fort Lee” sign. The supporters were crowded around a table, and the speakers spoke in a microphone. People brought their families with them, including their kids. They made signs to show their support. The signs said things like “Love,” and some even used drawings. One sign I remember clearly was a person with a mask, and the artist used rather dark colors to show their pain and fear.         

I may not have understood then how painful the attacks were, because I hadn’t even made a sign. But the rally encouraged some other people.  Recently, my mom and her coworkers started a podcast. It focused on the Asian Americans living in Queens, NY. I loved listening and learning the stories of these Asian American people, but the podcast also helped me understand the depth of Asian hate in the country. The podcasters would give some snippets of the attacks on Asians such as GuiYing Ma, a 62-year-old lady that was hit on the head with a rock by a stranger. She was sweeping the sidewalk outside her Jackson Heights home on Nov. 26th when a man ambushed her, smashing a large rock against the left side of her head just inches from her eye.

Mrs. Ma woke up in a hospital after a coma and even waved to her husband, though her brain was damaged. For a while everything seemed like it was going to be okay. But then she died. When I heard that, I was shocked. How could someone just kill her, when she didn’t even do anything wrong? What if this had been someone close to me? What if it had been someone in my family?
Then I started speaking up.

“Does anyone else want to share?” My teacher at school asked. It was a few days before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and my class was talking about equal rights and what movement we would like to stand up for.

“Noah?”

“I’m Asian, so I want to stand up against Asian hate. There are attacks going on, and many people have gotten hurt.”

I wasn’t the only one speaking about this. Several of my other friends pitched in, and talked about the attacks, and one almost made the teacher cry with her answer, which was more like a speech. Now I finally felt like I was part of this. Not a really big part, but enough that some people at least know about it. Who knows, they could spread the word, and more and more people will hear about it and speak up against the hate crimes. I might not be some famous speaker that would win the Nobel Peace Prize, but I did something to bring a little, just a little, more peace in our world.

By Noah Xia, age 9, Asian American, New York. She adds: “I like to write, read, play piano, and draw. I write poems, short stories and essays. I enjoy playing with my brother and riding my bike along the Hudson River. Even if I don’t have a piece of paper nearby, I make up stories in my head. In fact, one of my greatest stories (according to my brother) was completely improvised! My submission talks about the hate crime attacks against Asians and how they affected me. At first, I didn’t think I could do anything about the attacks, but I ended up actually bringing a little more peace in our world. I believe that world peace is possible, but we’re just not quite there yet…”

Pumpkin Cakes: A Traditional Chinese Breakfast

Traditional Chinese Pumpkin Pies (Cakes) Make a Perfect Chinese Breakfast (and a Delicious Dessert too).

To make the traditional Chinese breakfast of pumpkin cakes, you will need:

1/4 pumpkin, 2 tbsp sugar, 200g rice flour, red bean paste (optional), and white sesame seeds (optional). 

You will need to prepare the pumpkin first.

  1. Get rid of pumping seed and it’s inside fiber.
  2. Peel off pumpkin skin. 
  3. Slice into thin pieces ~3mm. Thinner pumpkin slices will reduce the time it takes to be cooked. 
  4. Boil the Water first and Steam it in a bowl for 10 min.
  5. After steaming, pour out water from the bowl if any.
  6. Will need to add 2 tbsp sugar and smash it until there are no pumpkin lumps left. 

Making the dough

  1. Add in 50g of the rice flour, and mix evenly. Repeat 4 times. Do not add-in all the flour at once.
  2. What we want is a rather soft dough. (If you have reach this texture, you don’t need to add exactly the same flour amount as I did; different pumpkin and flour will perform differently).

Making the pumpkin pie 

  1. Take approximately half a hand fist of dough. 
  2. And rub into a ball shape, then press over the dough making a round cake shape. 
  3. If you have red bean paste you can take a scoop of it and place it on the pie shaped dough and close it up and repeat step 2. If you are adding the paste make sure your pie shaped dough is thinner and bigger. Don’t add too much of the paste. 
  4. If you have a plate of white sesame, run both sides of the finished pie in the plate, you can press upon the pie softly allowing sesame to stick to the surface of the pie. 

Cooking the pie 

  1. Preheat the frying pan.
  2. Put in enough oil to cover the bottom of the frying pan.
  3. Add in the pie when oil is hot enough. 
  4. Cook the cakes on low medium heat. 
  5. After every one minute, flip the cake(s) over to the other side. Prevent overcooking on one side. 
  6. To test if it’s cooked. You press upon the pie (cake) and if its shape returns quickly it means it’s cooked. Normally it takes 2-4 minutes.

Pumpkin pie is full of nutrients and is very delicious. Chinese often have pumpkin pie as a dessert or breakfast. Pumpkin pie has the best taste the day it’s made, so please enjoy and finish them quickly after made. This recipe makes 5 to 8 pies; you can adjust the recipe proportionally for your family size!

Wendy Mou, age 16, California. Wendy is an active student who enjoys creative outlets including food. For example, baking is her preferred way to relax after school work and family chores. Since her childhood, she has always held respect for the natural ingredients that go into her food. Currently, she is in the process of starting a food science club at her school. She looks up to those unique recipe makers, and hopes to become one someday. 

Festival of Mid-Autumn Moon 

 By Chiu-yi Rachel Ngai, 16, Arkansas.
 Lanterns bloom like flowers, the light and colour of crowded city streets. 
 Folded paper, a slinky of patterns,
 Dancing as the candle flame flickers a pattern silhouette. 
 There are plastic lanterns these days, thick and rubbery with a strange smell,
 Lit up with a mini LED bulb. 
 They come in all shapes and sizes, pop culture and cartoon designs.
 Mickey Mouse, Power Rangers, Doraemon. 
 I remember my cousin had an Elsa once, a matching pair with her Anna-toting sister. 
 We met with mooncakes under a full moon,
 Lotus paste sticky sweet, salted egg yolk seawater respite. 
 Our ancestors looked up at the same moon, and now we stand in their light— 
 A product of their mistakes and triumphs.  
 We stand tall, a proud new generation, 
 Eager to take on the world outside our Hong Kong,
 Not knowing how much our bubble would change in the years that watched us grow. 
  
 I was fourteen when I left on a fifteen hour flight to the United States, 
 Creating a half-globe’s distance within my heart. 
 I write this at sixteen, a full lifetime for so many before me, a full lifetime for still too many. 
 Arkansas is American Southern, dry and green and different and not a bad place to be— 
 And yet I remain a daughter of the Asian East— 
 My bones do not feel like they belong. 
  
 I sat under the ever-present moon last Mid-Autumn, my second in the States,
 Eating mooncakes gifted by my art teacher, the only other Chinese person I know in the area. 
 I look up to the sky, to the stars my cousins do not see, the stars drowned by neon light—
 I look up to the sky, to the moon my family looked at thirteen hours ago, the moon my ancestors saw a woman’s story in.
 The moon keeps me close to home.  

By Chiu-yi Rachel Ngai, 16, Arkansas. She adds: "I grew up in the bustling streets of Hong Kong. I moved to the U.S.
when I was fourteen in order to get a better education. I am fluent in English and Cantonese. I can understand Mandarin/ 
Putonghua better than I can speak it. I am working on overcoming my internalized racism towards myself for being Chinese, 
and I decided to submit to Skipping Stones as part of my journey towards accepting myself and finding pride and 
joy in my cultural identity."

Taiwanese Food

By Camille Chen, age 10, Asian American, California.

I eat, sleep, and speak Taiwanese culture every day. Not a day goes by without my speaking Taiwanese or eating Asian food. My parents moved from Taiwan to America before they had me. Their childhoods were very different though, because my dad had to travel with his family because of his dad’s job. My mom experienced the art of Asian foods, and learned how to cook Asian food from her mom, her grandma, and other elder family members. 

I think that to be in an Asian family, it is a necessity to be able to at least cook some egg-fried rice. There are so many people out there that make such simple things the wrong way. You wouldn’t know how many videos are on YouTube with Asians looking at other people cooking Asian food and correcting them. Also, I think that Asian food allows you to really freestyle/improvise. For example, one of the dishes that my mom makes is Udon. Even though Udon is a Japanese type of noodle dish, you can cook it on the pan and mix it with pork and vegetables, and it is so enjoyable! 

Taiwanese food is very unique compared toEuropean food. You need a lot of effort to make it,  and learn about it. For instance, egg-fried rice can be extremely easy to make, but if you want someone to taste it and immediately love it, you need wok hay to make the flavor scrumptious when you are chewing the rice. The wok hay gives the rice a special flavor as if it’s cooked right under charcoal with a big fire underneath it. I consider the Wok as one of the wonders of Asian culture! It is so special and when you use it to cook anything, you can sense the heat and unique smells. The garnish adds even more flavors and makes it even better. But, you also need the correct garnishing. Egg-fried rice garnished with green onions is a classic, and adding cabbage with it is nice, but you don’t want a salad-like vegetable to go with your rice! The tiny details make Taiwanese food extremely difficult, but if you trust the process, it is all worth it in the end. However, egg-fried rice is just square one. Taiwanese food also includes soups with strong flavors or soups that can actually help your health! 

One soup that’s healthy and delicious is ginger soup. Usually, my mother adds cooked chicken to make the soup less boring. My mother also adds rice to make it more child-friendly. The real stuff about it is the special cooking wine. And a pinch of garlic. That makes the whole house smell like heaven. When I taste the soup, first I detect the rice. The rice has no flavor on it’s own, but since it’s been in the soup for some time, it tastes like the soup. Its texture is sort of al dente and the chicken is no different. When I eat the chicken, it has the flavor of the soup and tastes wonderful. The garlic is so soft that you can eat it without thinking it tastes weird. You won’t even notice you’ve eaten garlic. Underneath the base of the soup, I taste the ginger combined with the cooking wine, but it isn’t overpowering. Soy sauce is added as well. The rice, chicken, and the stock together make a wonderful homey ginger soup. The best thing is that each quantity is about equal, so you won’t have to waste anything. Once it’s on the table, we finish it all and stay full for a long time. 

Taiwanese food is important to me because I feel it brings culture and tradition. For example, dumplings, a very common and well-liked dish, are shaped so that they look like bars of gold; so when Chinese New Year comes along, people make or buy dumplings to eat in hopes of getting more money in the new year! The dumplings are a symbol of wealth. 

Zong Zhe, another very popular Asian food, also has a long history behind it. Once, a man named Chu Yuan was hired as an advisor of the King. After a long time, he became an extremely wise advisor and everyone saw him as a good person. But then, one day when Chu Yuan was giving the king advice, the King disagreed with him. This made Chu Yuan so sad that he thought he was unfit to serve. So, he drowned himself in a lake. Everyone felt sad that such a good person would die, so they wrapped up the rice in leaves to prevent all the fish and shrimp from eating up Chu Yuan’s body. This rice wrapped in leaves soon became known as Zong Zhe. Nowadays, people eat Zong Zhe at the Dragon Festival. I feel like this is an important and somewhat heartwarming story. It’s pretty entertaining to see others’ reactions to the story of Zong Zhe. 

When my grandpa was young, his family didn’t have much money. He didn’t have shoes to wear, no toys to play with, and they rarely had meat on the table. But when Chinese New Year came along, his family mixed flour and water together to make a certain type of dough and pinched it into shapes of butterflies and flowers. The point is, just because my grandpa’s family was poor, his mom still did her best to keep the tradition going on, and also wanted the kids to have =>p.17 Taiwanese Food continued from p. 16

fun moments in their childhood. So when he was in the hospital, he remembered all of these fun moments and savored them. 

Taiwanese culture and food are very important to me. I know many of these stories by heart; they were told to me by my family. I hope that one day I will be able to cook our traditional food and share our culture and history with the next generation. My family keeps the Taiwanese traditions going.

By Camille Chen, age 10, Asian American, California. This was selected as a Noteworthy Entry in our 2021 Youth Honor Awards program.

Early Bilingual Education

Taking it One Baby Step at a Time:  Why We Need Early Bilingual Education

By Michelle Lo, 17, New York.

If you’re like any typical American high school student, this is how your language-learning journey will go: you spend three years blazing through vocabulary and learning all of the tenses, grammar, and tones of the language, only to forget everything that you’ve learned by the time you’ve graduated (except for maybe how to ask to use the bathroom or where the library is).

Meanwhile, with the rise of globalization over the last century, bilingualism and multilingualism have become some of the most important skills to have as an individual. Some of the many benefits to bilingualism include a communication advantage in the world’s competitive job market, the ability to communicate and connect with people from a variety of social settings, and a wider global perspective. So, if being bilingual or multilingual is that important, how might we improve the way we teach language such that our students can actually become fluent in them?

The solution, as simple as it may be, is to have our students start early.

One of the clearest benefits to learning a new language early is that the younger you are, the easier it is to pick up the language. In a linguistic study done by a research team from Boston-based universities, researchers aimed to pinpoint the age at which our ability to learn a new language disappears through a short online grammar quiz. Individuals were asked about their age, language proficiency, and time studying English. The study concluded that children up to the age of 18 are proficient at learning a new language, while children up to the age of 10 can achieve the level of grammatical fluency of a native speaker. There are many reasons why children generally have an easier time learning a new language. Younger children are less fearful of making mistakes than adults and teenagers, a hurdle that one must overcome in learning a new language. Certain brain structures in children also make this process of language learning easier. One study conducted by researchers at UCLA observed rapid growth in the parts of the brain that are responsible for developing language skills between the ages 6 and 13, but a sharp decline in growth after age 13.

Contrary to what some may believe about bilingualism, learning a second language during a person’s most formative years will not affect their ability to speak their primary one nor will it confuse a child. As a matter of fact, numerous scientific studies have concluded that being multilingual can offer numerous cognitive and intellectual benefits for children. A 2004 study by psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee found that the brains of bilingual children had better executive functioning than those of their monolingual peers. This meant that bilingual children were better at planning, solving problems, etc., which stemmed from their ability to switch from one language to the other. Various studies have also proven that bilingualism can lead to higher intellectual performance and higher creativity.

Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence supporting early language learning, the U.S. is falling significantly behind other countries in foreign language learning. As the American Councils for International Education reported in 2017, out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, only 20% of K-12 students are enrolled in foreign language classes, compared to the European median average of 92% thanks to the national-level mandates for foreign language education. In addition, many European students begin to take foreign language classes from the ages 6 to 9, whereas most American students begin in their high school years. Unlike many European nations, many states lack requirements regarding foreign language education or the age at which students should start in place, causing more lag for American students.

In order to make up for this lag, we need to start taking steps in emphasizing foreign language education, beginning in early childhood. That could mean implementing a more standardized system in the state where all students can begin to get some exposure to foreign languages from kindergarten. We could also expand dual language programs, one of the many great ways early childhood foreign language education can tap into a child’s language learning potential. Although dual language programs vary in form, most are designed to teach students in two languages in order to foster bilingualism and biliteracy. Usually, one half of the instructional day is taught in a foreign language and the other half in English. Many of these dual language classes are immersive. For example, children are encouraged to learn through play, song, and social interactions with their peers, which, over time, can help to foster their interests in learning the language and culture. These programs are great for English-learners and native English-speakers alike. For English-learning students, a bilingual classroom allows them to build friendships with their native English-speaking peers, a relationship that would not have been possible if it wasn’t for their mutual understanding of each other’s languages. For native English speakers, sharing the classroom with non-native speakers and immigrant students will help normalize the diversity in languages and cultures in the classroom.

If we expect our coming generations to build a future that is diverse and multicultural, we need to first construct the foundation: an improved and earlier foreign language education system for all students. Students, teachers, administrators, families, and change-makers of any form can all contribute to this cause by recognizing this need and advocating for better early bilingual education, whether that be writing to your local representatives or spreading awareness within your community. That way, we’ll just be one baby step closer to a truly globalized future.

—Michelle Lo, 16, New York. She adds: “I’m an American-born-Chinese, or ABC, that has always been interested in language and culture. Growing up, I spoke only Chinese as a young child but after rigorously studying only English during my childhood years, I lost my ability to speak Chinese. This is something that I deeply regret as I felt that it created a barrier between me and my culture. As a result, I hope to spread awareness about the importance of bilingualism in our multicultural society to prevent cases like mine from happening.”

Sources:

American Councils for International Education, 2017, The National K-12 Foreign Language Enrollment Survey Report, www.americancouncils.org/sites/default/files/FLE-report-June17.pdf.

“Benefits of Learning a Second Language at an Early Age: Ertheo Education & Sport.” Benefits of Learning a Second Language as a Child | Ertheo Education & Sport, 10 June 2020, www.ertheo.com/blog/en/learning-a-second-language/.

Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. “Why Bilinguals Are Smarter.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html.

Devlin, Kat. “Most European Students Are Learning a Foreign Language in School While Americans Lag.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 6 Aug. 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/06/most-european-students-are-learning-a-foreign-language-in-school-while-americans-lag/.

Smith, Dana G. “At What Age Does Our Ability to Learn a New Language Like a Native Speaker Disappear?” Scientific American, Scientific American, 4 May 2018, www.scientificamerican.com/article/at-what-age-does-our-ability-to-learn-a-new-language-like-a-native-speaker-disappear/.

Talukder, Gargi, et al. “Brain Development Study May Provide Some Help for Educators.” Brain Connection, 9 Dec. 2016, brainconnection.brainhq.com/2000/09/20/brain-development-study-may-provide-some-hel

Umama, Khujista. Personal Interview. 18 Dec. 2020.

Zhang, Jingyu. Personal Interview. 16 Dec. 2020.

When my Grandfather Holds my Grandmother 

 When my grandfather holds my grandmother,
 Saigon still smolders on the ashes of April.
  
 When my grandfather holds my grandmother,
 he lowers his head, the way the hunted have always
 bent over their own reflection to drink.
  
 When my grandfather holds my grandmother,
 his schoolboy arms trace etymologies over her waist,
 how the Vietnamese word for “remember” and “miss” are the same
 while his nose relearns a scent, he relearns a year—
 as if to walk through the kitchen window you’d still see
 paper milk-flowers bursting into flames while
 the stars gape like the sky’s bullet wounds;
 and where my grandfather holds her,
 smoke soldiers, also, dig ghost claws in her wrist,
 chanting bạn có nhớ tôi không?
  
 My grandfather holds my grandmother 
 in a history never ended, as if somewhere 
 between his hands, the city smolders on.

By Samantha Liu, 16, New Jersey. She adds: “As for myself, I am a fifteen year-old aspiring writer in New Jersey. I’ve been trying so hard to relearn and revisit my Asian heritage recently – part Mandarin Chinese, part Vietnamese. My grandparents from both sides are children of war, of Mao, of Tet. The bloodshed of the twentieth century, much of it perpetuated by America itself, is etched in my family history. Much of it is cruel. Much of it is turbulent. Much of it inspires bouts of PTSD while I, nine and unknowing, huddle in a corner. But some of it, as I tried to write in “When my grandfather holds my grandmother,” is light. It is how my grandfather and grandmother fell in love, in the ardent and all-consuming way of people who might not see another day. To me, this is the legacy of Vietnam—not politicking, not ideology, but humanity. I have inherited a war, and I will continue to unravel it.”

Mother’s Daughter

“The way you cut your meat reflects the way you live.”  –Confucius

If Confucius was right, then my mother lived delicately, treading a tightrope as thin as the slices of her twice cooked pork.

When she ate her first American hamburger, she had complained.“Ai ya. Why is the meat so big? With a hulking piece of meat like this no wonder they all in debt. Americans cannot save.”

She told me this while I minced the pork for our dumplings and she rolled the dough. “Thinner, Jian Yang. We are not the barbaric Americans.”

She didn’t intend it, but with those words, the knife I held slashed across my life like the cuts across the pork. In that moment I told myself I am not a barbaric American because I am not an American. My narrative became a relic of my mother’s, two sides of the same page, her side’s ink still impressed on mine.

For five years after that, I remained scared of knives, and my mother cut my meat for me.

“You are what you eat.” –American proverb

“Is that dog food?”

“It can’t be, because Ling Ling doesn’t feed dogs, she eats them.”

That day I went home in tears and asked my mother to pack me a sandwich. I showed her what the pale kids kept inside of their princess lunchboxes—spongy white bread around ham and cheese, a cereal bar, an apple.

“Ah yes, I make for you.”

The next day I found a pork bun in my backpack. I held the baked dough and took a bite. I tasted pork marinated with soy sauce and chives. As I chewed, I hoped the hujiaobing could pass off as a hamburger.

“Ling Ling is eating dog food again.”

“Does that make Ling Ling a dog?”

The day after, there was steamed bun inside my backpack with barbecue pork and black pepper. I looked once at the pearl knot before throwing out the chasiubao. I didn’t eat my lunch the day after, or the day after.

If you are what you eat, I thought, I don’t want to eat Chinese anymore.

And so my transformation began. Everyday at lunch I’d throw out the delicacy my mother had packed. Everyday at dinner I’d pick at my rice while staring at the woman across from me, pockmarked yellow on her cheeks and creased valleys in her forehead. My greatest wish was not to turn out like her.

I thought I had actualized my wish when my skin began to turn translucent from skipping meals. I thought I was becoming white. I started eating nothing altogether, and I became nothing.

Once my mother scolded me for not eating. “Jian Yang, you look like ghost. Eat your noodles and you become yellow again.”

I can’t remember most of what happened next. I remember my tongue, poised like a knife, uttering some ugly sounding words I barely understood. I remember wanting to make her bleed with my words, one cut for each bite of dog food I had endured. I remember pretending she could seep out red on a cutting board, bleeding until we were left colorless.“Chink.”

“He who takes medicine and neglects diet wastes the skills of the physician.” —Chinese adage

My mother doesn’t cook anymore. Instead, she lays on a red-blanketed bamboo mat in a room brimming verdant. On her desk, an incongruous collection of terracotta cups, holding qi-rectifying rhubarb and shen-calming wolfberry.

The doctor said her condition is too fragile to eat. Strong flavors could disturb her gut, and I should instead blend basic nutrients for her to drink. I promptly replied that he was a fool.

The first time I cooked for her, she was coming back from the hospital. When I saw her, face of mountains reduced to ash, I dropped the plate. She asked what was wrong with me. I told her that my greatest wish was never to turn out like her. She told me that she had shared the same wish.

“You must turn out better than me,” she said.

We ate my meal, pork buns ribbed in ginger, in silence.

“Fashion is in Europe, living is in America, but eating is in China.”  —Chinese adage

I saw this scribbled against a dusty window to a grocery store in Chinatown. I don’t know why they say living is in America, because this country killed my mother. She died four months after the pork bun meal—inevitable, the doctor said. The nail salon she labored nine hours a day at had used illegally toxic polishes for years. While she scrubbed counters and coughed chemicals, her liver simply gave out. It was a miracle that she lived as long as she did.

My mother was a failure of an immigrant in most aspects. She stood at the Angel Island bridge seeking freedom, yet each day she beat herself an ocean back, until her vision became a mirage on the horizon. By imagining walls of white supremacy and shadowy businessmen, she trapped herself in a prison of her own making. She never found freedom because she never made it off that bridge.

I live in America, though. For lunch I go out for drinks with my roommates. We catch up on Grey’s Anatomy and someone invites me to a frat party later, which I only pretend to consider.

For dinner I stay home and cut my own meat, a piece for Brooklyn, a piece for Chinatown, for eating, for living. One piece for Jane Young, amateur journalist and cup-pong champion, one piece for Jian Yang, aspiring princess haunted by the paleness of memory. They are the decussations of a third-person America, carved apart by my mother into island pieces long before I realized that action had shattered me.

And so, I reassemble. I take the pieces, toss in a million chili peppers, and sauté in an ocean of soy sauce until they become one and the same.

By Samantha Liu, 16, New Jersey. She adds:“Mother’s Daughter” parallels my two clashing heritages. Having been raised speaking and reading Mandarin Chinese, I was expected to fulfill all the Confucius-esque dreams of my Chinese immigrant mother, whom I ended up resenting more than anything. Through the symbol of food, my story explores my struggle to reconcile these beliefs as I learned to define myself—as Chinese-American, as heterogeneous as food itself.”

Xiāng Xiāng

By Jessica Wang, 16, New York.

I have two names. One I use everyday while the other I keep stowed inside me, locked behind the bars of my lips and the breath of my tongue.

My caged name is actually quite pretty. It means aroma. Not a smelly one, but a homey, warm odor, like the scent of fresh laundry or the steam that bubbles off chicken soup. 

Sometimes I say my name to myself, just to see if it’s still there. It’s strangely pronounced and forces my tongue to touch the roof of my mouth and oftentimes I stumble over the loopy syllables. I only say it in the dark; face mushed between two pillows and huddled under layers of blankets, just in case it tries to make a run for it.

I’m afraid of my name.

It’s odd because you’re not supposed to fear a name. Can you imagine if every Tim, Tom, and Harry were afraid of his name? That would be a strange world indeed.

I’m afraid of my name because it’s cursed. It doesn’t belong here, on this soil or in this strange body that I try to call “American”. If I were to let my name go from its cage, past my lips, people would stare and know that I too don’t belong here. They would ask me what my name means and I would explain that directly translated it means “nice smell”. And then they would laugh at the absurdness and wonder what the silly Chinese were thinking. Naming a child after a smell? What would be next? A girl named after the taste of a lemon?

If I said my name, it would betray me, reveal me as an outsider. It had done it before and would do it again. So I betray my name first. I betray it by wearing colored contact lenses and trying to look Caucasian. I betray it by buying creams to hide the yellowness of my skin. I betray it by waking up every day and wishing my name wasn’t there, that instead of two names I only had one, one free name.

I dye my hair blonde one day, just to see what it would be like to have yellow curls and pretty hair. The dye stung my scalp and smelled like bleach and acid and nothing homey or warm at all. I am not an outsider. I tell myself as I brush my new beautiful hair.  I am not an outsider. I am not an outsider. I am not an outsider. The words taste funny on my tongue. 

My mother no longer calls me by my caged name. She used to, back when I didn’t understand what the word “foreigner” meant and my worst fear was getting an apple instead of cookies during snack time. I remember she used to say it in a certain way, curling her pink tongue and rolling the syllables off neatly. But she stopped after I asked her what the word “slit-eyes” meant. Now she calls me “Je-ssi-ca,” the name neatly printed on my birth certificate, my official name, the free name. She named me after the actor Jessica Simpson because she’s pretty and Caucasian and has blonde hair. The name is easy to pronounce and flows off the tongue smoothly, the American tongue that is.

My second name “Je-ssi-ca” does wonders. It helps me chain up my foreign name and even add a couple more locks, determined to snuff it out. And it works. I can no longer hold chopsticks properly or handle the spices of traditional dishes. When I try to speak the language my ancestors once spoke, my thick American accent pokes through and slurs together the vowels and syllables. It’s American-Chinese my grandma would murmur and shake her head at how far her heritage has fallen. I am no longer the little girl who listened to her stories about the immortal monkey king and his magical staff. She does not know who I am. I am foreign to her.

I have successfully locked up my name.

But even without saying my name, it still betrays me. People still look at me like I’m an outsider even though I was born here, even though I speak English perfectly, even though I betray a part of myself everyday just to please them.

And no matter how much cream I scrub into my skin, no matter how much I try to hide the dark brown in my eyes, they keep staring. 

But I like my caged name. I think it’s pretty, even prettier than light hair and blue contact lenses. It reminds me of steamed dumplings and curved mandarin letters and red paper lanterns with gold embroidered on the edges. And when I say my chicken soup-fresh laundry-oddly pronounced-laughable name. I feel good. The syllables punctuate the air daringly and challenge the world around. When I whisper the letters, my name is free and so am I.

It’s true that my caged name doesn’t quite fit me. I can’t write or read mandarin and my pronunciation is terrible. But it’s still a piece of me, just like my skin and my eyes. I can’t just scrub it off, mask it, or even lock it up. At  the end of the day my caged name is mine. All its dents, curves, and ridges are mine. It’s oddly pronounced, and it’s mine. It is me, and I am mine. My culture. My ethnicity. Me.

 I don’t want to lock myself up anymore.

By Jessica Wang,16, New York, United States.

“My piece is about the period in my life when I went through a lot of self-hatred because of the way I looked. I hated being Chinese because it meant that I looked very different from my peers. I remember sometimes I would even buy whitening creams and dye my hair in order to try and fit in. I should have realized that instead of trying to please others I should have learned to accept myself for who I am.”

A Chinese-American Pioneer for Suffrage

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee: A Chinese-American Pioneer for Suffrage

By Fanny Wong, New York.

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee
Photo: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee.

from the archives of the public library in Arlington, Virginia

On July 25th 2018, a post office in New York City’s Chinatown was named Mabel Lee Memorial Post Office. It is an honor that Mabel did not anticipate, but it was richly deserved.

Mabel Lee is not well known today, but in 1912, a New York Times article recognized her as a suffragist. It reported “Ten thousand strong, the army of those who believe in the cause of woman’s suffrage marched up Fifth Avenue at sundown yesterday in a parade the like of which New York never knew before.”  On May 4th 1912, what a sight it was to see a sixteen-year-old Chinese girl on a white horse, wearing a sash with “Votes for Women” printed on it. Starting from Greenwich Village, she led a parade of 10,000 suffragists!

Mabel’s father, a missionary pastor from China, had moved to the United States when she was four years old. Living with her mother and grandmother in China, Mabel studied in a missionary school and became proficient in English. She was an excellent student and in 1905, at the age of nine, a scholarship landed her in the United States to attend school. She and her mother were reunited with her father, who was the pastor of the Baptist Chinese Mission in New York’s Chinatown.  At that time, Chinatown was a new community. According to the census of 1910, there were only 5,266 people of Chinese descent in the city of New York.

Mabel’s father was active in the community and greatly influenced his daughter.  Even at a young age, Mable’s Baptist faith infused in her a desire to improve the lives of women and girls. In her teenage years, she became involved in the suffragist movement, knowing full well she could not vote. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited Chinese immigrants from becoming citizens. Nevertheless, she threw herself energetically into the suffragists’ cause.

Excelling in English, Latin, and mathematics, Mabel was a brilliant student in high school at the Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn. She attended Barnard College, founded for women only because the nearby Columbia University did not admit women at the time. She wrote articles about feminism and suffrage in The Chinese Students’ Monthly magazine, understanding that the poor treatment of women was holding China back and represented a kind of backwardness. 

Mabel’s essay “The Meaning of Women Suffrage” promoted the importance of voting rights and equal opportunities to women. Her speech “The Submerged Half” was an urgent plea to the Chinese Community to promote girls’ education and women’s rights. From the call to the general public and specifically to the Chinese immigrant community, she was indefatigable and resourceful.

As an Asian woman, Mabel broke another barrier. In 1921, she was the first to earn a Ph.D. in Economics from the previously all male Columbia University.  

Mabel was ready to return to China to start a girls’ school. That had always been her dream. In March 1923, she sailed to France to study European economics to prepare herself better. In one of her letters, Mabel said, “I do thank God for the United States which gave me wonderful development and such a keen insight into the realms of knowledge. I feel that my life must be devoted to helping my people in China.”

But that was not to be. Her father died the following November and she returned to New York to take up his work at the Baptist mission. The community and the mission depended on her. She became the director of the First Chinese Baptist Church, devoting the rest of her life to the small church and community service center. The center improved the life of the community by offering a health clinic, a kindergarten, vocational training and English classes. Undoubtedly, she influenced the growing population of children and families in New York’s Chinatown.  

In 1920 the 19th amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote, but the privilege did not extend to Asian or Black women. It wasn’t until 1943 that Chinese persons were permitted to become naturalized citizens with voting rights. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally gave voting rights to Black women, 95 years after Black men were able to vote.

What made Mabel spend time, energy, and actions for women’s rights to vote when she herself couldn’t vote? Her religious faith and her nationalistic vision for China suffused her convictions and actions. In her speech “The Submerged Half” she noted “The welfare of China and possibly its existence as an independent nation depended on rendering tardy justice to its womankind.” Her next statement applied to the United States as well. “For no nation can ever make real and lasting progress in civilization unless its women are following close to its men if not actually abreast of them.”

Mabel died in 1966 in obscurity. It is not known whether she ever became a US citizen or if she voted in the US. In the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, she and other less known pioneering suffragists are getting the recognition and celebration they deserve.