Tag Archives: asian american

Chinese Americans of Historical Significance

May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander Month.

The first Asians documented in the Americas arrived in 1587, when Filipinos landed in California. In 1788, the first Native Hawaiian arrived on the continental United States, in Oregon. And, in 1900, Hawaii was annexed by the U.S. The Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiians, Indians, Koreans and other Asians have migrated to the United States over the last few centuries. Wikipedia has a great article on the history of Asians and Hawaiians that you may like to read. To observe the AAPIH Month, we are pleased to share a few writings by Fanny Wong of New York, focusing on some important Chinese personalities that have made significant contributions to our nation’s history. A few of these are:

Hong Yen Chang: The First Chinese Lawyer in the U.S.

Born To Be A Chef: Eileen Yin-Fei Lo

Polly Bemis: A Pioneer Chinese Woman in the Northwest

Hazel Lee, Chinese American Fighter Plane Pilot

King of the Soup Dumplings: Yang Bing-Yi

United States v. Wong Kim Ark

Discrimination Against Asians in the United States

Ten Times Better: George Lee, Ballet Dancer

By Fanny Wong, Chinese American Author, New York.

Young George Lee stood by himself, leaning against the fence in the playground. Other children ignored him in recess, just as they did in the classroom. He looked thoroughly Chinese, but they knew he had a Polish mother. Still, George was a happy child.

His father, Alexander, a circus acrobat, taught his young son how to do a headstand. Father and son were so proud when he finally nailed it. His mother, Stanislawa, a former ballerina, was George’s first ballet teacher. She insisted that George learn every pose, exercise and combination correctly. Not just correctly, but beautifully. George loved the lessons. He loved to dance. That’s why he was a happy child in spite of not having friends.

In 1941, when Japan occupied Hong Kong, where George was born and lived with his family, they fled to Shanghai. There he took dance lessons from Russian teachers. Dancing made him forget for a little while that his father had gone to western part of China to find work. At the age of 7, George was performing polkas and Russian dances in nightclubs to help support the family.

George was heart-broken when his father died in a traffic accident on his way back to Shanghai. Fearing the Communist takeover of Shanghai, mother and son evacuated to the Philippines and spent two years in a hot and humid refugee camp. His mother had to find a way to get out of there. She was able to contact a friend, who sponsored their immigration to the United States.

This friend not only changed their lives by being a sponsor, but he also set George on a path to a career in dance. He introduced him to the School of American Ballet, the prestigious ballet school in New York City. He received a full-scholarship, and in an advance dance class where all the students were White. Knowing how fortunate he was, he was never late for class and wished the classes lasted longer.

Balanchine, the principal and choreographer of the school, asked George what he could do. George did impressive splits, double turns and multiple turns. His dancing was masculine, graceful and joyful! Balanchine was impressed and gave him a role of “Tea” in the 1954 production of The Nutcracker. He was the first Asian dancer in the New York City Ballet. His costume—the Fu Manchu moutache, the queue and rice paddy, did not bother him. “Dancing is dancing,” he said.

But his dancing was being noticed. A New York Times critic observed, “George jumps wonderfully and exhibits some wonderful extensions in the Chinese dance.”

He was not asked to join NY City Ballet. At 5’ and 5”, he was told he was too short. He could do nothing about his height. However, his dancing caught the attention of Gene Kelly, a renowned dancer in film musicals. He cast George in the original production of “Flower Drum Song.” He did 600 performances, many in various cities. He was doing what he loved, and he was using ballet techniques in the Broadway shows.

Touring was tiring and the work was sporadic. There was too much traveling involved, and he had to stay in inexpensive hotels. As much as he loved to dance, he decided to learn a new trade. While performing in Las Vegas, Nevada in his mid-forties, he learned to be a casino dealer. He worked as a blackjack dealer for 40 years in different casinos after he retired from dance performances.

As the first Asian dancer at New York City Ballet, he led the way for the next generation of Asian ballet dancers who are becoming increasingly prominent in major dance companies. New York City Ballet features Chun Wai Chan (Chinese) and Mira Nadon (Indian and American) among others.

When they were moving to the U.S., his mother had told him that he must always remember that he would be seen as a Chinese person in White America, and so he’d better be ten times better. George never forgot that; he always tried to be his best both in school and in his work. He died at the age of 90 on April 20, 2025.

By Fanny Wong, Asian American author, New York. Her work has been featured numerous times in Skipping Stones over the years.

Fou Tsong: A Renowned Chinese Pianist

“I’m always a beginner, I’m always learning.”

By Fanny Wong, Chinese American Author, New York.

Fou Tsong, the renowned pianist, was born in 1934 in China. He was well-known for his sensitive interpretation of the compositions of Chopin, Debussy, Schubert and Mozart. Still, Chopin’s music was closest to his heart. 

At the age of 21, he was awarded the third place prize at the 1955 International Chopin Piano Competition held in Warsaw, Poland. He also won a special prize for his performance of a Chopin’s Mazurka.

How did a shy, quiet young man from China reach such heights?

Fou Tsong’s father, Fou Lei, used to tell him, “First, you must be a person, and then a musician, and then a pianist.”

Fou Lei was an intellectual who translated the complete works of the French author Balzac into Chinese. His strong and heartfelt opinions shaped his son. He provided the water, soil and nutrients for his son’s growth, down to the correct elbow positions at the edge of the dinner table. He thought that people, like trees, without good cultivation, could not thrive.

Fou Tsong, under his father’s supervision, was educated in the classical Chinese traditions and grew up under Chinese and Western cultural influences. His household was full of art and music with a large collection of records.  

His father noted his son’s love of piano and music, and him bought a piano. Fou Tsong began his music lessons at the age of 7. He later recalled, “When I was young, I enjoyed playing the piano so much I felt I was in paradise. A gift from heaven.”

Among his earliest teachers was Mario Paci, founder of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. After Paci’s death in 1947, Tsong studied mainly on his own.

In 1952, Tsong performed Beethovan’s Emperor Concerto with the Shanghai Philharmonic to great acclaim. The Chinese government was so proud that he had reached such prominence that it sent him at age 19, to international competitions in Bucharest, and then to Warsaw.   

At the Conservatory, his teachers praised that his playing was like a flowing stream, like a river. While he was studying in Warsaw on a scholarship preparing for the 1955 competition, Communists took over the government of China. This political change brought danger, turmoil and suffering to the nation. Fou Tsong was called back to China. He was instructed to writing a self-criticism and witnessed his father being branded as anti-Communism. He returned to Poland and graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory in December 1958. After what he had seen in China, he made a decision to defect—seeking a political asylum in London, England on Christmas Eve, in 1958. His career soared from his London base.

Fou Lei’s trouble increased with his son’s defection. The Red Guards from the Shanghai Conservatory hounded him. The Red Guards were primarily high school and college students mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong to enforce his vision of Communist society. They targeted and harassed perceived intellectuals of traditional influence and bourgeois elements. Both his parents, under great duress from the Red Guard, committed suicide. His father was 58, mother 53. His heart broke when he learned of their deaths two months later.

In 1981, a volume of the letters from his father over the years was published. It was full of advice, encouragement and stern paternal love. The book “Fou Lei’s Family Letters,” collected by Fou Tsong’s brother, Fou Min, became a best seller in China.

* * *

A Few Quotes from Fou Lei’s Letters:

• 1954, evening of 18th and 19th of January.

“If one cannot see the larger picture, one is in the danger of thinking the sky is no bigger than it appears to be seen from the bottom of the well.”

• 1955, 26th of January.

“Dear Son, Had we ourselves been in the hall where you played, we would have been unable to control ourselves. Happy at the honor you’re bringing to our country. And happier you are giving joy to so many others through your music.”     

* * * 

Only a few of Fou Tsong’s letters to his father survived, likely because many were destroyed by the Chinese government.

In his later years, Fou Tsong played the piano for hours every day, even as his fingers grew frail. Whenever he was criticized for defecting and of being a traitor to his country, he would say, “It’s not that I was longing for the West. I was choosing freedom. There was no other choice.”

Fou Tsong died in London of Covid-19 in 2020 at the age of 86. He left us these words, “I’m always a beginner, I’m always learning.”

He is remembered for his sensitive ear for color and the elusive gift of melody. His music swirled, twisted and soared on wings of sound.

By Fanny Wong, Chinese American author, New York. Ms. Wong is a frequent contributor to Skipping Stones Magazine. Please also read Hong Yen Chang: The First Chinese Lawyer in the U.S. that Fanny wrote recently by clicking on the title.

A Longing for Unity in a Fractured Time

A Longing for Unity in a Fractured Time

A meaningful encounter with Swami Vivekananda in Chicago
By Anu Prabhala, Maryland.

With everything unfolding in our nation and across the world, I found myself longing—almost aching—for a message of unity. I have never encountered that idea expressed more beautifully or more boldly than in Swami Vivekananda’s address at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893.

What he offered was not a soft call for tolerance, but a radical reimagining of unity itself: unity across religions, yes—but also between science and philosophy, reason and faith, intellect and intuition. His words dissolved borders we insist on keeping rigid—between belief systems, nations, even between what we call perfection and imperfection—revealing them instead as expressions of a single, indivisible truth.

At the heart of his message was a simple yet demanding idea: happiness does not arise from narrowing identity, but from expanding it. As Vivekananda put it, “Happiness comes best from universal consciousness.” And to reach that expansiveness, he insisted, we must loosen our grip on the anxious, isolated self: “To gain universal individuality, this miserable little-person individuality must go.”

More than a century later, the address endures—not only for its philosophical clarity, but for its quiet poetry and moral courage.

Photo: Swami Vivekananda in Chicago, 1893 (handwritten words say, “one infinite pure and holy—beyond thought beyond qualities I bow down to thee”). Credit: The Art Institute of Chicago.

When Two Worlds Quietly Merged:
I felt the full weight of that courage standing in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago, where Swami Vivekananda delivered his world-altering address—just one floor below George Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, one of my favorite paintings of all time. In that moment, two long-standing currents of my life converged: my love of art, particularly French painting, and my grounding in Vedanta, a philosophy that feels like a pair of well-worn jeans: real, practical, comforting, and quietly accepting.

Art and philosophy, France and India, my adopted country and my birthplace—under one roof, they did not compete. They conversed.

That is what happens, I have learned, when we allow the world to shape us: the Self expands to make room for more of humanity, not less.

Humble Rooms, World-Altering Ideas:
The room itself was modest—neither grand nor theatrical. Its restraint felt fitting. History reminds us repeatedly that transformative ideas rarely announce themselves with spectacle. Mahatma Gandhi, a failed lawyer, reshaped a nation. Franz Kafka, an anxious bureaucrat, altered world literature. John Harrison, a self-taught carpenter, solved the longitude problem that changed navigation forever.

Photo: Fullerton Hall’s podium, where Swami Vivekananda delivered his address in 1893.

And Swami Vivekananda—a nearly penniless, 30-year-old monk from India—arrived in America after a long sea voyage to speak at what was then a radical gathering: a Western, Christian, male-dominated Parliament of Religions. His courage lay not just in showing up, but in declaring—without apology—that no single tradition owned the truth.

As he told the audience plainly, “If anyone here hopes that his unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, ‘Brother, yours is an impossible hope.’”

Plurality as Sacred Truth:
For Swami Vivekananda, the universe’s beauty lay precisely in its plurality—in many paths converging toward one reality. He captured this vision with enduring grace:

“As the different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their waters in the sea… so the different paths which men take all lead to Thee.”

In a world increasingly fractured by certainty and fear, his tone feels almost maternal—firm, reassuring, deeply confident in the human spirit. From his very first words—“Brothers and sisters of America”—he transformed a formal assembly into a human family, drawing a standing ovation that lasted nearly two minutes.

Unity, for him, was not sentimental. It was a moral necessity.

He explained this idea through an image as simple as it was profound: a seed planted in the earth. Surrounded by soil, air, and water, the seed does not become any one of them. It grows according to its own law—assimilating what it needs while remaining true to its nature. So too, he argued, with religion, each tradition must grow in its own way, enriched by others, yet never erased by them. It was this insistence on growth and individuality rather than imitation that gave his words such enduring force.

A Childhood Trained in Coexistence:
His message resonated deeply with my own upbringing in Dadar Parsi Colony in Mumbai, where a Zoroastrian agiary, Hindu temples, and a mosque existed within a few hundred feet of one another. You prayed to your own gods, and then, as children, we came together to play. Coexistence required no explanation.

That innocence was shaken during the Hindu–Muslim riots of the 1990s, when curfews confined us indoors for weeks and fear fractured neighborhoods that had once lived generously with difference. It was my first encounter with how easily love for the divine can be manipulated into division.

That is why Vivekananda’s message feels so urgent today. He reminded the world that faith is not defined by labels, but by a deeply human plea for meaning, reassurance, and strength in moments of vulnerability. Faith, in that sense, speaks a universal language.

He said, “So long as there is such a thing as weakness in the human heart, so long as there is a cry going out of the heart of man in his very weakness, there shall be a faith in God.”

What he seemed to suggest was that true faith is not defined by religious labels at all, but by a deeply human plea—for meaning, for strength, for reassurance in moments of vulnerability. In that sense, faith speaks a universal language, capable of being heard by many names. 

Not Belief, but Becoming:
Vivekananda also offered a quiet corrective: religion, he argued, is not about struggling to believe doctrines, but about realizing truth—about being and becoming. What mattered was not the form of God one worshipped, but the character one cultivated. Did faith enlarge the heart? Did it make room for others? Did it foster harmony?

In his vision, religion was not about believing in God. It was about becoming more fully human—again and again, with tolerance and acceptance at the center of the effort.

Perhaps that is why his words endure. In a fractured world, Vivekananda reminds us that unity is not an idea to defend, but a way of being to practice—and that only through a serene soul can we truly see the beauty of the world, and our place within it.

Let us learn to see beauty in unity. It is the only way humanity sustains itself.

Meaningfully yours,
Anu Prabhala

PS: Swami Vivekananda delivered a series of six speeches between September 11 -27, 1893 at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Read a transcript of all six speeches here. Here’s an audio recording of his first speech (~28 minutes) delivered on September 11th, 1893.

Bio: Anu Prabhala is a senior consulting writer at the World Bank and a former French instructor who has spent her career working with nonprofit organizations in international development. Inspired by Vedanta, her personal writing explores travel and cross-cultural encounters as pathways to understanding beauty, wisdom, and our shared humanity.

This article, reprinted with permission from Anu’s Substack, Imperfectly Perfect, is part of a chapter from her forthcoming travel memoir, Imperfectly Perfect: Love Letters to the World | A Travel Memoir of Beauty, Scars, and the Human Spirit. To stay informed on the publication of the book, you can subscribe to Anu’s Substack at https://imperfectlyperfect.substack.com/subscribe (Subscription is free; choose “no pledge”). 

American Born Taiwanese

American Born Taiwanese

By Alyssa Huang, age 15, freshman, California

I have two identities, as reflected in my name. My first name originates from the West and contains Greek, English, and Irish roots. It means “rational thinker” and “prospering flower.” By contrast, my last name comes from the Far East. It means “yellow” in Mandarin—an imperial color that symbolizes beauty and balance. When pronounced in Mandarin, my last name flows off the tongue, like a gentle breeze blowing over green meadows in warm sunlight. However, in America, its symbolism and beauty become completely lost. The Phonetic English pronunciation of my last name, “Hawaaaang”, steam rolls over its naturally melodious tone and sounds like a rusty bell, jarring and dissonant.

Crunch. Textured rocks smash across the Earth’s pavement. Every second graders’ hands enthusiastically create “skin colored paints” from chocolate brown and cream-colored rocks. All but mine. I squint and scrutinize the creek bed, searching desperately for tan-yellow rocks that match my skin color. None exist, so I settle on a cocoa-colored rock and forcefully grind it into paint to fulfill the mandatory assignment: a self portrait made using “rock paint.” Later that afternoon, classmates bustle around the classroom taping up their masterpieces. I find myself encircled by a perfectly-matching array of smiling, white-faced portraits. After struggling to find a space on the wall, I hide my solemn-faced, dark-skinned image in the corner. That summer, I avoid the sun, duck behind shadows, and slather on thick white sunscreen to protect my delicate, thin skin. But my complexion remains yellow and tanned. Nothing changes.

For two years, I coexist with my school classmates as a foreigner. When fourth grade finally ends, I feel relieved and ready for my anticipated summer vacation— visiting my grandparents in Washington DC. “Nai Nai!” I shout as I run into Grandma’s warm, outstretched arms. As she envelopes me in her unconditional love, a calm peace washes over my small frame. I tilt my head back to admire Nai Nai’s dark brown, almond-shaped eyes. They appear kind and gentle, strong and wise. I notice my own reflection in her eyes, sigh deeply, and entwine my fingers with Nai Nai’s, creating a seamless blend of golden-brown. Later that day, Nai Nai ushers me to visit her friends. “Let me introduce you to my Garden Group,” she says. We approach an elderly circle of Taiwanese ladies who peer at me curiously and ask, “Ni shi shei?” (Who are you?)  Nai Nai responds, “Wo de sun nu.” (My granddaughter). I survey the wise elders, who share my ancestry and heritage, and feel emboldened. Having spent the year learning Mandarin as my World Language, I prepare to show off. ”Knee howe, woe jiow Huwang Leeshawn,” I enunciate slowly, trying to capture the correct tones. The women’s happy, squinting eyes grow big and round. “Ta bu jiang guo yu?” (She doesn’t speak Mandarin?), Nai Nai rescues me and responds in fluent Mandarin, “Ta shi mei guo shen de.” (She is American-born). The women nod politely, but look away to conceal their disappointment. To them, I am an American foreigner. Not Taiwanese enough.

In the fall of sixth grade, Social Emotional Learning class begins to address the previously taboo topics of race and ethnicity. At my table, two Minority students describe hateful words and years of feeling like outcasts. I empathize with their pain and begin sharing my own story, but they cut me off. “You don’t know anything about racism!” they exclaim. A statement, not a question. “You’re Asian, so you’ve never experienced discrimination in your life!” My jaw drops, but no words emerge. I feel so paralyzed that I cannot muster a response. “Asian racism doesn’t exist,” they announce, then walk away, leaving me isolated yet again. Later that afternoon, I greet a new Asian classmate before entering my advisory. She complains about her “Asian Tiger Mother’s tough expectations.” “My mom can be tough, too,” I comment, trying to empathize. The Asian classmate suddenly steps away from me. “What do you mean? You’re not….” she hesitates before pursing her lips. “I’m not what?” I ask. “Well,” she stammers, “You’re not really…. Never mind, you don’t get it.” We stand side-by-side in awkward silence. My classmate never completes her sentence aloud, but her facial expression is clairvoyant, for I have encountered this scenario before. My classmate speaks Mandarin at home, whereas I speak English. In her eyes, I am a fake Asian, or a “Twinkie”—someone who is yellow (Asian) on the outside but intrinsically white (American) on the inside. I pull my hoodie over my head and walk towards the carpool circle.

Eighth grade ends, and summer finally arrives. For the first time since COVID, I attend summer camp—a week-long Taiwanese cultural camp called Taiwanese American Next Generation (TANG). While unpacking my clothes in my dormitory room, I hear a hollow knock at the wooden entryway. The door swings open, and my assigned roommate steps into our shared space. My eyes widen because it feels like I am staring at a mirror. Like me, she dons an NBA athletic T-shirt and Nike basketball sliders ; a crooked ponytail keeps her long, black hair away from her sun-tanned face. “I’m Audrey,” she announces, then offers me a fist pump. For the next half an hour, my New Jersey-born “ABC” roommate and I speak in excited tones, sharing stories about our families as we walk towards the camp’s opening ceremony. Once at the auditorium, a speaker begins addressing all two hundred campers in Mandarin. I glance sideways at Audrey and notice her head tilt in a confused manner. Creased lines appear on both our golden-skinned foreheads. “Do you understand this?” she giggles, “Because I don’t!”

Immediately, I smile. “Me neither,” I reply.

—Alyssa Huang, age 15, freshman, California. She adds: “My name is Alyssa… I am a Taiwanese-American.

“California is typically thought of as a melting pot of cultures, but I grew up in an overwhelming homogeneous Caucasian neighborhood. When asked about my nationality, well-meaning neighbors have shockingly confused Taiwan with Thailand, or insisted that Taiwan is the same thing as China (The People’s Republic of China). (But, it’s not). 

“As a child, I felt embarrassed about my ethnicity and dark colored skin. It was a huge relief to me when middle school arrived, and new Asian students enrolled in my sixth grade classroom. However, those new students were fluent in Mandarin, and I found myself being teased for choosing to take Mandarin as my “foreign language.” 

“The first time I ever felt truly accepted was at Taiwanese American Next Generation (TANG). TANG is a week-long, multi-generational, Taiwanese cultural camp that I attend with my brother, cousins, parents, and grandparents. We engage in fun Taiwanese games, listen to Taiwanese speakers like Arthur Chu (an eleven-time Jeopardy! winner), and learn about Taiwanese culture. At TANG, we share an appreciation for Taiwanese food and also a deep value of family, relationships, and community. TANG openly welcomes non-Taiwanese (my co-campers include Indian, Haitian, European, and Korean-Americans). I love that Taiwanese culture is warm, welcoming, and inclusive.

“Nowadays, I confidently bring Taiwanese pineapple cakes to social events and gladly compare cultures with my European, Latino, Indian, and Persian friends. I recognize that building an inclusive community requires honesty, insight, and sharing. It’s important for me to listen to my peers, but also contribute my part. I’m finally able to share about myself and my background—because I’m finally proud of my Taiwanese-American heritage.”

Truly

“Truly”

By Isabelle Tee, age 15, New Jersey.

“She doesn’t want you to join us,” she said, “you are too loud.”

For most of my elementary school years, I’ve never had an actual friend that I’ve felt comfortable enough to just be myself. Many of the people I’ve talked to were mainly acquaintances so that I didn’t look like a loner. Because when you’re on a field filled with kids who don’t think before they talk, the last thing you want to be is alone.

So I tried to befriend a group of girls that I’ve only distantly known from second grade. Whenever they talked to me, I just nodded. I had no clue what they were actually talking about. During recess, I just follow along and pretend to be the bad guy when we play games. During class, I’m the one giving them answers for worksheets. And during lunch? That’s another story.

My mom packed me fried rice that day, which—in my opinion—was better than the soggy dino nuggets. I sat down at the lunch table with my “friends” and ate my food. One girl starts to sniff the air and looks around. Then she goes, “What’s that smell?” She looks at me. All I could do at that moment was put on a fake smile. How can you be friends with someone who can’t accept who you are?

The following day at recess, I joined the girls at the corner of the field. Only two of the girls were standing there. I asked them what game they were playing, and they awkwardly looked at me back. They told me that the others didn’t want to play with me anymore, apparently, I was too loud for them.

I pleaded with them, promising I wouldn’t scream loudly and lower my voice. They looked at me and told me to wait. One of them ran over to the other girls and whispered something into their ears. When she came back, she allowed me into the group again. I kept my word and didn’t speak much. I didn’t want to go back home crying to my mom again.

I realized then that, from the beginning, they never truly accepted me. They were never true friends.

By Isabelle Tee, age 15, Asian American, New Jersey.

In the Forest within the City Park

there is a beauty that can not be muffled

by the city’s lights and sounds

it flies free with the clouds

and pushes the leaves in the air

onto the ground

to flutter like butterflies  

it holds the reins of the seasons

it dresses the earth in wailing white and grassy green

it gives us life  

but we take away from its own

the sky is filled with fire

the ground bathed in garbage

after all that it has done to us

we must save it from ourselves  

we must protect our world, our home

our beginning

nature

By Jaslene Kwack, age 11, Illinois.

Jaslene writes: “I like writing, art and music. I play the piano, clarinet and I started bassoon a while ago. In my free time, I like to write stories and poems. I try to be creative using metaphors and verbs that aren’t cliche. I enjoy drawing realistic and abstract pieces of art. When I grow up, I want to be a person who combines art and writing in a creative way to entertain or help people.

     “I wrote [this] poem about nature and how we are polluting and killing our environment. I want to recognize the beauty of nature and how it formed us in the first place. Sometimes, people don’t give nature as much credit as it should deserve. Without it, our world would be empty and barren. In my poem, I also talk about parts of nature all around us everyday. The wind blowing, the leaves falling from trees. Technology which is represented in my poem as “the city’s lights and sounds” is taking over our world slowly by every hour. I think because of all these new inventions and ways of life we are making for ourselves, a lot of us forget about how important nature is and how it is humanity’s origin. We should recognize nature and be grateful for this world around us. I think we should all strive to be better and protect the earth so that we can keep our world clean and healthy.”

Overlooked Oppression

Minding my own business, I looked for the exit sign in the store since COVID-19 precautions had limited the number of usable doors at Target. As I made my way to the familiar red exit, a middle-aged white man approached me.

“Because of you, I have to wear this mask. Your kind started this whole pandemic.”

As an Asian American, I have always experienced racism, but I’ve never spoken up about it because not many people like me have. Oftentimes, I find that the Asian community keeps quiet and internalizes the racism we endure. However, after my trip to Target, a message shouts clearer to me than ever: The unrecognized racism that Asian Americans face has been shut down for far too long, and it is time to bring awareness to this prejudice. 

Asian Americans have actually faced racism for over a century. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. “For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities.” In other words, the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law to ban immigration based on race, demonstrating how Asian Americans have long been subject to racial discrimination.                

But more urgent are the recent violent attacks that thousands of Asian Americans have suffered. As the number of COVID-19 cases have increased, so have the number of hate crimes towards Asian Americans. NBC News reported at least 3,800 hate crimes against Asian Americans in the past year, mainly against Asian women. From random strangers shouting, “go back to China,” “Chinese virus,” and “Kung flu” to mass shootings such as the one in Atlanta, countless Asians have recently experienced these horrifying acts of racism.

But why aren’t more people talking about all the lives lost due to this prejudice? The answer is simple. Asians are seen as the “model minority,” so we – apparently – don’t experience racism since all of us are so opulent. However, the model minority myth is very problematic. This myth originated in the 1960s when the 1965 Immigration Act reversed the previous restrictions on Asian immigration. But this act still limited which Asians could enter the U.S. because only highly educated professionals were allowed in. Because of the background of these skilled workers, they were able to pursue specific careers with higher income, resulting in the development of the model minority myth. However, this overgeneralization of Asian Americans masks the struggles of those who aren’t as fortunate. In 2018, the Pew Research Center found that Asian Americans have the largest wealth gap in the U.S., proving the inaccuracy of this harmful stereotype. Additionally, this myth places a racial wedge between Asian Americans and other people of color. Rather than uniting to fight the issue of white supremacy together, racial minorities are divided against each other because of the model minority myth, which hinders progress towards racial equality. Even though our society has made several steps in the right direction in terms of anti-racism, there is still a long way to go. We must continue to fight for racial justice so that all people of color can finally have an equal playing field.

By Lily Fu, 17, Asian American, Texas.

Please visit Lily’s website: https://asianamericanawareness.blogspot.com/ She created it for her youth advocacy organization that focuses on Asian American Awareness.

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.”