1965 Magazine by mewang

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

The Generations Issue: Awkwafina Talks Racism, Representation, and Breaking New Ground

1923840219812374

US Edition 4.5.2019 CAN $17 US $15 1965MAG.COM

No. 14

Spring 2019

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Lists

Food

First Person

Lists Asian American Artists Making Waves Ft. Toro y Moi and Mitski

Lists Our Bookshelf Ft. Celeste Ng and Thanh Nguyen

Food Shrimp and Mango Dumplings Sue Tran

Food The Way of Coffee: Japan Brews Up Its Own Unique Culture

Food Swirl, Sip, Repeat: The Rise of the AsianAmerican Sommelier

First Person The Readers Point of View: Responses from Issue #14

First Person The Readers Point of View: Realities of Asian in Post Midterm Election America

In Every Issue 7 Contributors 9 Editor's Letter 96 Fortune Cookies

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

How Nora Lum went from bedroom rapper to star of Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean's 8. page 55

Features 45

Why Aren’t There Any Famous Asian American Photographers? Will Matsuda

Interview with Awkwafina Jennifer Dickenson

The Not-So-American Feeling of Being 1.5 Generation Immigrant Chin Lu

The Two Asian Americans Karan Mahajan

Adrian Meško

ADMINISTRATION

EDITORIAL

CREATIVE

Editor In Chief Michelle Wang Assistant to Editor in Chief Samuel Guttentag, Jocelyn Moniz Finance & Scheduling Vanessa

Features Editor Chelsea Bretal Senior Editor Katherine Newman Office Editor Courtney Cheseburough Head Writer Aditi Thota

Creative Director Luke â&#x20AC;&#x153;Laserbeams" Leissring Art Directors Daniella Barrera, Margaret Bent, Graphic Designers John Keough, Carlos Ferriera, Anthony Lopez

Editorial Desk editorial@1965mag.com Address Office C, Green Offices, 240 Kent Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11249

Staff Writers Ligaya Mishan, Rachel Ann Cauilan, Jarry Lee Copy Editors Shannon Farrar, Kevin McHugh, Abigail Marsh

Digital Team Aiden Gerstmyer, Austin Yu Photographers Shirley Yu, Dustin Drankoski, Kyle Doresz, Willem Dikkers

Featured Contributors

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Will Matsuda

Julia Kokernak

Feature Writer Matsuda is an accomplished photographer and writer with work featured in Aperture, Space Place Gallery, DeWitt Wallace Fine Arts Center, and National Geographic. He is concerned with the Asian American point of view and the voice of Asian Americans in culture.

Editorial Director Julia is our beloved Editorial Director who has been with us since the beginning. An expert in all things abroad, Julia has brought us to the places to inspire and create what 1996 is really all about.

Shirley Yu

Photographer Yu is a digital photographer specializing in fashion, portraiture, and still-life. Shirleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vibrant and colorful aesthetic taps inspiration from lighthearted memories of her childhood mind: a place of daydreams, where curiosity and spirit are limitless.

Karan Mahajan

Feature Writer Karan Mahajan is an Indian-American novelist, essayist, and critic. His second novel, The Association of Small Bombs, was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction.

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Letter from the Editor

fter a year of devastation, respiration, and perspiration (mostly stress induced), it feels great to step back and acknowledge all of the wins in the Asian American community. From Awkwafina's appearances in Ocean 8, Crazy Rich Asians, and, possible future Oscar contender, The Farewell, to new up and coming Asian American chefs popping up worldwide, to Mitski's “newfound" success, there are many wins to celebrate from 2018. While we as a community continue to struggle with the feelings connected with family, workplace, and the generational differences we face as a broad community, we see a rise of amazing community engagement and connection from places like “Subtle Asians Traits" Facebook group, a place treated like a forum for Asians and Asian American youth (and some older members of our community) to connect on the oddities While we see the very real effects of hateand cultural differences, to the Angry Asian Girls in Boston, ful policy, we see a major shift. Whether its a collective of Asian American women hosting a collective of our aunties and uncles, your younger siblings, artistic events (poetry readings, installation pop-ups, etc.) that or simply between yourself and your Asian inevitably bring outsiders into the Asian American experience. American brothers and sisters, people are now Additionally, we see civic engagment becoming at the seeing us. forefront of the Asian American agenda. Representing 10% From generation to generation, from of the American population and the fasting growing minority blaccents to immigrants, from illegal or 5th group in the country, Suman Raghunathan, Executive Direcgeneration, we are diverse, we are here and we tor of the advocacy group South Asian Americans Leading will be seen. Enjoy this issue of 1965, focusing Together (Saalt) notes that campaigns and legislators “are reon the generations of Asian Americans, how alising these external dynamics, policies, and forces are deeply we came here and how our culture has shifted impacting us, particularly on immigration". the dynamics of the American population.

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Asian American Artists Making Waves: Music

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Toro y Moi Half-Filipino creative and Berkeley-based singer, songwriter, record producer and graphic designer Chazwick “Chaz” Bundick has created moody chillwave tunes under the moniker Toro y Moi since 2008. His debut album “Causers of This” showed his knack for sampling and experimentation with production as he developed his own personal chillwave sound. With five fulllength albums and several side projects (such as creating electronic dance music as Les Sins and collaborating with jazz duo The Mattson 2 in “Star Stuff”), Bundick’s experimentation in sound — from chillwave, funk and R&B to house and guitar-rock inspired tunes — has solidified him an artist to watch. This year, the city of Berkeley even designated “Chaz Bundick Day” on June 27 for his contributions to the city’s arts and music.

Thao & the Get Down Stay Down Indie folk singer-songwriter and guitarist Thao Nguyen creates tunes tinged with country folk and blues, something that may have come from her upbringing: Her parents were Vietnamese refugees who settled in Falls Church, Virginia. With a voice that has been compared to Cat Power, Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor, she began writing music and playing guitar at age 12.

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Playlist Can't Let Go, Juno Kishi Bashi

Mirage Toro y Moi

Road Head Japanese Breakfast

Happy Mitski

Kishi Bashi Kishi Bashi is singer, violinist, composer and multi - instrumentalist Kaoru Ishibashi. Before embarking on his epic orchestral solo project in 2012, K was the singer and founding member of electronic rock band Jupiter One and was a former member of indie rock band Of Montreal. With extraordinary musical compositions and lyrics, Kishi Bashi’s music is complex, unique and brings lots of layers of sound.

Nobody Dies Thao & the Get Down Stay Down

Sometimes Heems

Alterlife Rina Sawayama

Safe Dumbfoundead

Mitski Born in Japan to a white American father and a Japanese mother, Mitski’s family rarely stayed in one place for long; at times she has called the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malaysia and the Czech Republic home. Even now, she stashes her stuff at her father’s place in the States but doesn’t claim a permanent address. After switching from studying film to pursue music at SUNY Purchase College, Mitski released haunting, piano-forward songs on her own before making a name for herself with 2014’s Bury Me at Makeout Creek and 2016’s well-received Puberty 2. Direct in her lyricism, Mitski has bold guitar skills and an unflinching stage presence. In “Your Best American Girl,” her most popular song to date, she outlines the particular pain of being different: “I guess I couldn’t help trying to be your best American girl.” The message is a mix of her unique experience as a Japanese-American nomad navigating love and our universal fear of rejection, and also functions as something of an artist statement: Mitski isn’t your average American rock star, but she’s giving it her best shot. Over time, she has nabbed top spots at festivals like Coachella and received nods from icons like Iggy Pop, who called her the “most advanced American songwriter that I know.” It has taken constant work to get where she is now–and she’s not done proving herself.

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Recipes Shrimp and Mango Dumplings SERVES 25 DUMPLINGS A little sweet and a little savory, this recipe is simple to prepare but will make you feel like a dumpling master. Did we mention the dipping sauce? — Sue Chan, Care of Chan

DIRECTIONS For the dumplings, rinse the shrimp in cold running water. Pat them dry. It's super important that there isn't a lot of liquid in the dumpling mix, otherwise, it'll cause the skin to break while cooking. Peel and devein the shrimp. (You can keep the shells and use them to make stock if you want.) Rinse again. Chop the shrimp until it's almost paste-like. Mix the garlic, lime juice, lime zest, ginger, pepper, soy sauce, salt, and cornstarch together in a small bowl. Pour the liquid mixture in with the shrimp. Add the mango and cilantro. To wrap the dumplings, take a storebought dumpling skin and put a scoop of about ½ tablespoon of the shrimp filling into the center of the skin. Dip your finger into the bowl of water and then wet the one side of the skin, around the filling. Then fold the skin over and press together until all the air pockets are pushed out. Crimp the skin edge together. If you need the skin to bond together more, use more water as an adhesive. To fry, heat about 2 tablespoons of oil in a non-stick pan on high heat. Make sure the oil is nice and hot before you start cooking. Place the dumplings bottom-side down. Place as many dumplings in the pan as possible without overcrowding the pan. Fry for a few minutes until the bottom is a nice even golden brown. Bring down the heat to medium. Then, pour some water in the plan and cover so the dumplings can steam. Steam the dumplings for about 3-4 minutes, until the dumplings are cooked through and the water has evaporated. Uncover the dumplings and let the bottoms crisp up a bit more. Take them off the stove. To make the apricot dipping sauce, combine all sauce ingredients and mix well. Garnish the dumplings with cilantro and scallions. Serve with the apricot dipping sauce.

1-lb whole shell-on shrimp 2 garlic cloves, minced juice of ½ lime zest of 1 lime 1 ½ tsp. ginger ¼ tsp. black pepper 1 tsp. soy sauce 1 Tbsp. salt

1 tsp. cornstarch ½ mango, small dices 1 Tbsp. minced cilantro 25 dumpling skins canola, or peanut oil chopped cilantro and scallions

APRICOT DIPPING SAUCE: 1/3 cup apricot preserves 1 Tbsp. soy sauce 1 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar 1 Tbsp. of black vinegar 1 tsp. grated ginger 1 garlic clove

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Erik Madigan Heck

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

JENNIFER DICKINSON

Photo by Erik Madigan Heck

If the title of Queen of 2018 is up for grabs, rapper and actress AWKWAFINAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claim to the crown is irrefutable.

Adrian Meško

If celebrities really were just like us, they would all be Nora Lum. The exhilarating rollercoaster ride that the rapper and actress has been strapped into for the entirety of 2018 is slowing down, pulling into the final stretch, and Lum – who left her stomach back there on the track round about when the loop

– Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians – were among the biggest films of the year. She also released her second album, In Fina We Trust, and became the second-ever woman with Asian heritage to host Saturday Night Live. Her route to fame, while it has elements of the routine – a childhood love of entertaining; attendance at LaGuardia ‘Fame School’ in New York – is bespoke. Born and raised in Queens, the daughter of a Chinese American father and South Korean mother, she pins her performer personality to the death of her mother when Lum was four. “I really do, looking back now, attribute whatever comedic sensibility I have to that traumatic event,” she says, with a degree of discomfort borne as much from talking about herself as discussing that childhood game changer. “I think I developed and used humor very early as a defense mechanism, to make people around me feel joy instead of sorrow. That was when I started to perform.” Luckily, young Nora had – still has – a guardian angel in the form of her paternal grandmother, a woman who “really ingrained in me at a young age that it’s okay to be weird”. She was seven when ‘Grammafina’ stepped in because her father was so often at took her onto the red carpet for Ocean’s 8 – is work, and, although money was scarce, the windswept, mind-blown, and worried that she laughs were plentiful. “My Grandma nurmight never get a chance to go around again. tured whatever comedic sensibility that was In the past 12 months, the 30-year-old, who [in me], because she loved that I was spunky. goes by the stage name of Awkwafina but No joke was ever too dirty, I never got in away from the cameras is definitely a ‘Nora’, trouble. I would say vulgar jokes, really lowhas premiered three movies, two of which brow jokes,” she laughs. “She loved them all.”

I developed and used humor very early as a DEFENSE mechanism, to make people around me feel JOY instead of sorrow. That was when I started to PERFORM

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

‘Awkwafina’ emerged during college, while Lum was Ish. Things were still scrappy: there was a book, Awkwafina’s majoring in Journalism, born in part, she says, out of what NYC; a solo album, Yellow Ranger, in 2014; and appearances she was learning in Women’s Studies: “Intersectional racism, on TV. The touchpaper song got her fired from her job as an institutional racism, the plight of [transgender people]… It assistant in a publishing house and did not go down well with gave me a sense of empowerment and a realization that a lot Dad – “He was horrified. Well, it wasn’t even the song, he was of women out there are not embracing their own power.” just horrified about my career move. He wanted me to be an Right from the start, her work had shock value. The songs air traffic controller because they make the best entry-level she produced and released on YouTube – or, as she calls it, salary” – but, eventually, he came around. “He wanted the “the Asian Hollywood, because there’s no gatekeeper” – were best for me and he did not believe that Awkwafina would ever never intended to be feminist anthems, but they depicted a become a thing,” she explains. Did she always believe, then? woman unafraid to go her own way and ruffle feathers in the “Not at all, no. But I did know that if I didn’t try, I would grow process. Her family’s reactions were mixed. “My dad flipped old thinking, ‘Maybe life could’ve been different’.” a s**t, went crazy. But my grandma? Never. She bought me The difference between Nora and Awkwafina, as Lum a DJ controller and a mic.” is now very used to explaining, is that the latter is a no Lum grafted, writing raps in 20 minutes, convincing holds-barred, speak-first-think-never version of Lum that mildly famous faces to appear on her YouTube comedy show, she (clearly somewhat reluctantly) left behind in her twenties and spending the day interning at media companies. Then, in when more awareness and a tendency towards over-thinking 2012, one of those hastily scribbled songs – a belated response set in. The persona allows her to do things that Nora would to US rapper Mickey Avalon’s song My D**k, entitled My shy away from. Take her recent stint as host of Saturday Night Vag – lit the touchpaper (these days, the quite frankly incrediLive: “You’re on live TV, you know that everyone you know ble lyrics and low-fi yet unforgettable video of Lum removing is watching, so that’s when Nora’s eyes roll back and she just, a series of bizarre objects from a vagina that, no, we do not like, falls, and Awkwafina comes out and does her thing.” actually see, is heading for four million views on the platform).

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

In the Asian American community, EVERY year we say, ‘Oh, this is the year, Asian Americans are coming up’, but it NEVER really happens. And I think this year… it HAPPENED.

Erik Madigan Heck

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

How to Become an Asian American Super Star Attend NYC "Fame" High School

Study Journalism, Women's Study and Mandarin

It’s certainly hard to imagine the woman who practically shuffled out of yesterday’s photoshoot, seemingly somewhat embarrassed at the whole procedure, happily taking center stage on one of the most critically judged TV shows around, or spitting out lyrics about the superiority of her genitalia. But Awkwafina does that, and more, with astonishing, endearing aplomb. Although the SNL appearance clearly had even her ballsy alter ego feeling very emotional – at one point Lum explains that, aged 11, she stood outside the SNL studio while Lucy Liu made history as the first Asian American woman to host the show, because she fully appreciated the weight – and the wait – of that moment. “It meant so much to me,” she sighs now. “I cried when she said that she was the first Asian female to host it. To be the second is just…arghghghgh!”

Go Viral for Rapping about Your Vagina on YouTube

Star in Girl Code for awhile

Star in a few supporting roles for indie films

Become a Worldwide sensation after starring in Crazy Rich Asians

Of even more weight, though, was this Asian Americans are coming up’, but it never really happens,” summer’s runaway hit, Crazy Rich Asians – explains Lum, who stole every scene as Peik Lin Goh, the the first film since 1993’s The Joy Luck Club best friend of Rachel Chu (Constance Wu). “And I think this to feature a predominantly Asian cast set in year…it happened,” she smiles. the present day. So pivotal was the film, that Her recent introduction to the mechanisms of Hollywood the executives, including director Jon M. Chu, means that Lum has not endured the indignities of many passed up a mega deal with Netflix to debut Asian American actors; the parts she is offered, she says, are the film online, because they wanted to prove not thin or stereotyping – she would refuse them if they were. that viewers would turn up to the box office “Every movie I’ve done, it’s not even that they’re tiptoeing for this project and this cast. They made around it – it just hasn’t come up,” she says. But the issue their point. As of now, it is the top-grossing of feeling ‘other’ in her home country is one she is indelibly romantic comedy of the past 10 years, with familiar with. “I think growing up, [Asian Americans] always an audience made up of Asian, Caucasian, wonder, what am I?” Even the term is an insult. “‘Asian AmerHispanic and African American viewers – a ican’ is such a wide umbrella of so many different countries – great story translates, just as Asian audiences, the only thing we all have in common is discrimination. Every who have been fed little but white-centered single one of us has seen the slanty eyes in elementary school; movies for decades, could have told the studio everyone has been called, you know, some racial epithet by heads. “In the Asian American communisome car-driving guy. We’ve all experienced it and we’re all ty, every year we say, ‘Oh, this is the year, made to feel less American.”

Adrian Meško

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Lum is conflicted about Hollywood’s current ‘cancel culture’: a fear that if you say the wrong thing, cast the ‘wrong’ person, your show – or you – will be canceled. “If you were to say the same things you’d said in 2012 or do some things, it would just be like a cancel [now],” she says. “But [acting out of] fear… Is that the right thing? Or should you just do what’s right? Not throw people under the bus, not do s**t that’s messed up, not abuse minorities… [I guess] sometimes it takes being canceled to understand.” She has stated more than once that she would never accept a role if it required a stereotyped accent. An easy proclamation to make once you have your pick of jobs, but was she always so principled? “I would never. You have a responsibility. It’s funny, because if you go to a white dude and ask, ‘Do you have a responsibility to other white dudes?’, it’s just not a question for them. For me, I have a responsibility to my community to represent them because there are so [few] of us. For years before Crazy Rich Asians and all this, there were Asian American actors, working actors, who had no choice about what they could take. So when you say no, that in itself is a privilege.”

One thing she’s looking forward to about the end of 2018? Hopefully people will stop telling her it’s the best year of her life, the best it’s going to get. “It’s been crazy,” she agrees, shaking her head in wonder. “But every year that I’ve spent as Awkwafina, even when Iwas making $10,000, was always the best year of my life.” So, what has been her proudest 2018 moment? Not what you expect. “When I was fired from my job for shooting My Vag, I felt disgraced, shamed, and I never got over it. Recently my old boss wrote me this email congratulating me. I still carry that sadness, so it gave me a level of closure.” Lum’s next movie role is also one that explores Chinese culture. In this case, about a family who hide a terminal diagnosis from their grandmother, because of the belief that once you are told you are dying, you give up and the prophecy self-fulfills. She admits that she was drawn to The Farewell because of her own bond with Grammafina, and says that the tears she had to produce during filming were easy to come by. It’s the closest she’s come, she ventures, to feeling like a ‘real’ actor, though she’s not quite there yet. Her reticence to see what she does as true acting – despite her performance in Crazy Rich Asians being called out as one of the best of 2018 – is symptomatic of her remaining disbelief that this is her career now. “I always expect it to end tomorrow,” she says, more than once. “I always expect that all the money I’ve made – not a lot – will disappear and Buzzfeed will write a ‘Whatever happened to…’ article about me. I’ll be coughing loudly in some cubicle, saying, ‘I was Awkwafina once…’ But if it does go away, I won’t be mad. Because it happened, you know, and that’s a privilege.”

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Ramona Rosales

I have a responsibility to my community to REPRESENT them because there are so [few] of us. So when you say NO [to a stereotyped role], that in itself is a PRIVILEGE

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Chin Lu

你可以選擇成為一個局外人, 你也可以

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

The Not - Quite -American Feeling of Being 1.5 Generation Immigrant The uncomfortable subtext is that one culture is supposedly than better the

other

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

Victor is an engineer who fits many of the American stereotypes of Asians: He’s financially successful, well-educated, shy at first, and mild-mannered. In college, his peers didn’t like how he exemplified the model minority. A few Asian American acquaintances even told him this to his face, “You immigrants are not helping. You’re maintaining the stereotypes, and people expect me to be just like you.” Victor felt betrayed by his own people. I know this because Victor is my brother. We immigrated to the United States from Taiwan in 2000, when I was 12 and he was 14. We learned English and managed to assimilate quicker than our parents, but we’ve never quite fit in with the Americans at school. The thing is, when we went back to visit Taiwan, we didn’t quite fit in there either. We’d picked up too much of the American culture to be fully Taiwanese, but at our core, we weren’t American born and bred. The first time I heard the term “1.5 generation immigrants,” I was already a junior at UC Berkeley. I was interviewing for an internship at DAE Agency, an advertising firm targeting Asian Americans, and they explained that my cultural dissonance was because I’d moved to a new country before I became a teenager. I wasn’t first generation, or second generation—I was the 1.5 generation.

The concept is still relatively new. In 1999, UCLA anthropologist Kyeyoung Park first used the term to describe misfits in the Korean community, who were “distinct from those of the first- or second-generation ethnic American.” In 2004, sociologist Ruben G. Rumbaut further explored the term. His research compared the arrival ages of foreign-born Americans with measurements of their language skills, educational level, and occupational attainment, and he found the definitions of first-gen and second-gen immigrants didn’t cover the complexities of those in between. A new name was needed. A study of immigrant children completed last month similarly concluded that “1.5-generation immigrant children’s connection to their heritage culture is stronger than or similar to the second-generation immigrants,” but not quite to the level of first-generation immigrants either. Wendy, who moved to Southern California from Taipei when she was nine, remembers facing the cultural gap in college: “I was too Americanized for the Taiwanese Student Association, yet too fobby for the Taiwanese American Student Association.” Now as an adult, Wendy says she still feels that way sometimes, “like I don’t really belong with either side. Even at work, I worry about missing out on office socializing if I choose to watch a Taiwanese TV show over an American

one the night before. Meanwhile, when I go home to Taipei, my friends keep telling me that I act ‘so ABC’ [American-born Chinese] when I’m not.” I’ve experienced it too: When meeting me for the first time, people have said things like, “Wow, your English is so good for someone who immigrated here” or “How come you don’t have a fobby accent?” On the other hand, when I bleached my hair blond a few years ago, many of my older first-gen relatives openly clucked in disapproval, “Someone’s trying to look like a white woman.” The uncomfortable subtext is that one culture is supposedly better than the other, but the answer depends on who’s asking. And so for us 1.5ers, there’s an art in straddling the line between two cultures. Lucy, a San Francisco tech worker who relocated from Hangzhou, China, to Illinois at the age of five, describes herself as a chameleon of sorts: “I have developed the ability to adapt quickly everywhere because I’ve had to toe the lines all my life — I go with whatever will allow me to fit in more with the people I’m surrounded by,” she said.” For example, I watch how I dress and drive in America carefully, so I don’t get accused of being an Asian stereotype, but to please my parents, I got good grades and went to a great university. I think subconsciously I was raised to be more attracted to Chinese men, too.”

We’d picked up too much of the American culture to be fully Taiwanese, but at our core, we weren’t

我們吸收了過多的美國文

Americ an born

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE

化，稱不上是真正的台灣人，但是在我們的內心，我們也不算是土。生土

Every day is like a complex identity puzzle, and because neither our immigrant parents nor our American friends can fully understand, many 1.5 generation immigrants gravitate toward friends with similar singular backgrounds. Out of the eight 1.5ers I spoke to (in a mixture of English and Mandarin Chinese, naturally), all of them told me most of their friends are other 1.5ers — not first generation immigrants, nor American-born. “The differences between me and those of second generation are very subtle, but we talk about our shared experiences and struggles with our immigrant parents often,” said Ian, who emigrated from China to California when he was four.” I remember when I was getting picked on in grade school, I couldn’t explain the cultural differences to my mom and dad because my Chinese vocabulary is limited, and I couldn’t use English to communicate these kinds of abstract concepts either because of [the English] language barrier.”

and

. d e r

Many of the 1.5ers I interviewed said they suffered low self-esteem from grappling with their confusing cultural identity when they were younger. But now, as adults, they concentrate less on how being a 1.5er creates problems and more on its benefits. A few years ago, my brother was looking into purchasing an apartment over-seas, and he realized that “most people don’t have the luxury of an option to choose between living and working in Asia or America as easily.” And Jing, a 29-year-old entrepreneur who moved from Harbin, China, to Massachusetts in middle school, also sees the inbetween space as privilege. “I feel like stereotypes from both sides let me get away with things,” she said. “My Chinese family views me as more Americanized, so they don’t pester me about getting married and having kids. And in America, I feel like I can do certain obnoxious things as long as I do it in a cute way.”

Every day is like a complex identity puzzle, and because neither our immigrant parents nor our American friends can fully understand

長的美

國人

1965 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE