You won’t be aware of this for nearly another two decades, but May is Asian Pacific American Heritage month. I can picture you now as I tell you this, 17 years old with brows furrowed, sprawled out on that perpetually disheveled bed surrounded by posters of smoldering pop star gazes, wondering “Why would I celebrate that?”
And I get it. Up to this point, being Asian American feels like wearing too-tight wool pantyhose. There isn’t a moment when you aren’t aware of it, it’s constricting, scratchy texture like a second skin. From the moment you arrived, a six-year-old immigrant from China, blinking and bewildered after your first solo flight to meet parents you hadn’t seen in years, this new membrane has clung to you, whispering of a desire that colors all the memories of your childhood: I wish I belonged.