Exercise #10 Memoir scene 2004 (Interview with a journalist at Columbia University)

A: “Jana, your writing is so smart, and there’s so much promise. It belies your lack of maturity in speech.”

J: “Thank You so much.”

A: “So…how does it feel to be first generation Chinese American?”
(The Five Second Thought)
(I hesitate on answering this question. The meaning of the inquiry mingled with feelings of inadequacy, alarm, and indignation. I look at this journalist whom I’d never met and who knew nothing, absolutely nothing of my experience, or
even whether I considered myself “Chinese American.” How dare she assume that was how I identified myself by? I felt inadequate, because I didn’t know how to answer such a question. I felt alarmed at having to answer her, because I felt no matter what I said, it would only serve as an addition to the idealized construction of set beliefs about “my place” in American society. My feelings of indignation were caused by the implications of the term “First generation Chinese American.” I was not a “first generation Chinese American.” My parents came over to the United States in their early twenties, and adopted a lifestyle here that had little connection to the way of life in China. Now, when they go back to visit, the older generations consider them “outsiders,” not one hundred percent Chinese.” I am not an immigrant who suddenly found myself in a new land; I had grown up here. My parents are the first generation Chinese Americans. I am the second generation of pure bred American girls, Chinese by ancestry, but surely, American culturally.)

J: “What would you say if I asked you how you felt being an American?”

A: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

J: (in a rush of words) “I’m just as American as you are. I grew up watching the same cartoons on Saturday mornings, went to the same theaters, and watched the same movies, listened to Madonna and Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. I’m an American citizen just like you, and when I become eighteen, my ballot counts just as much as yours in political elections.”
(The One and a Half Second Thought)
(She’s looking at me searchingly and quizzically, trying to see where I am going with all of the things I just said)

A: “May I see some of the writing you brought with you today?”

J: “Sure, here is one…”

A: “No, I’d like for you to read them to me.”

J: “I don’t…”
(The Two-Day Thought)
(God, why did I break down in the middle of reading and cry in front of a total stranger? I really don’t understand why. I didn’t stop until I got out of the building. To that journalist, and perhaps to others, I am destined to write about the kinds of things a “Chinese person” would write about. I would constantly be limited to that point of view, the experiences of a categorized point of view. But I know it is my decision to break out of that)