UPFRONT: PERSPECTIVE
Seeking Freedom: FROM COMMUNIST CHINA TO THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE n BY LILY TANG WILLIAMS
Courtesy photos
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Lily (on the right) with two middle school classmates in Chengdu, Sichuan, 1976 when Mao died
8 603Diversity.com | February 2022
was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China right before the start of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. I lived with my illiterate working-class parents and two younger brothers in community housing consisting of just two unheated small rooms. To cook, my dad built an outdoor kitchen since there was no indoor plumbing. The free community housing had a mud floor, and eight families in the community shared one water pump and a single outdoor bathroom. Life was tough for my family. My parents worked full-time, six days per week at state factories. We survived on little pay and monthly food rationing coupons from the local government to buy small amounts of pork and eggs (only 2.8 lbs. of protein from all sources for a family of five for a month), a little rice, sugar, and wheat. Because my parents were ordinary workers, we were not eligible for luxury items like powdered milk. Sometimes, to supplement our diet, we even ate rats. I learned from my uncle how to trap rats
