A Moment of Candor

I have wanted for some time to talk more about myself in an open manner. I recently read Paper Tigers by Wesley Yang and it got me thinking about myself, my peers, and our parent's generation. According to my mother, I have not been the ideal Asian daughter because it is not filial to talk back and to do what you truly want to do in life. I have tried my hardest to do what would please her the most, to the point of sacrificing what I wanted to be in life, but there is a point you reach where you cannot be yourself and be who your mother wants you to be. The two cannot be reconciled and I have learned there is this important division between my generation (first born ABCs) and my mother's (recent immigrants).

To my mother, when my family and her friends say that I am "too American," it is something to be ashamed of; but I cannot change the influences in my life, of being in America and of being Asian. I am, and so are those like me, stuck in this no man's land of being Asian the way your parents are and being American like everyone around you.