Summers were once my own.Now I spend themChasing someone else’s dreamsTo fulfill unspoken obligations… Unspoken obligations which bind meLike the feet of my ancestorsBack in my homeland China. “Become a doctor,” they say,As if there is no alternative. But didn’t they come to America,The land of the free,In…
Come yonderTo the land of opportunitiesWhere the brave, free, strongDwell.Come yonder, to the land of the westWhere modern, progressive, democratic thoughtPersists. Come hither and experience the hierarchy ofRace and class and sex. Some are born lucky,They are the kingsWho reap rewardsFrom the pawns’Labor of early dawns. The place where…
“The language you think in is the one you’re most comfortable in.” my eighth grade English teacher had once announced, to a class of yawning teenagers. I sat in the front row, squeezing my eyes shut to try and think. But thinking about thinking is harder than you’d…
Prologue Not everyone goes through this. It could be quite a distorting experience, rooting half of your life in one country, and settling in another. You would always imagine, what if? What if I left earlier? What if I stayed? Will life turn out to be different? The…
A secret is sometimes a prima-donna. It revels in its understated performance: it doesn’t find power in volume. Rather, it finds its power in the silence. ex.) In middle school, where you would lean into your friend’s ear and tell them who you had a crush on with…