A note from the author:
This poem is about me growing up Asian in a predominantly white community and the feelings of a pervasive isolation from not fitting into white American culture. I wanted to express how this sense of “otherness,” which I now understand as a function of cultural imperialism, shaped not only the perception of my own identity, but harmed many people of color and first-generation immigrants who were considered simply not American.
i was eleven
the day I came home
beaten
tears cut like broken shards
my ribs ached
the taste of gravel still fresh
the word chink bounced hollow
against my skull
it was what they saw
my
slanted eyes painted with dirt
i wanted blue
black hair straight but stubborn
i wanted auburn curls
skin tinged a dull amber
i hated every inch
“to look at one’s self
through the eyes of others”
the mirror has little use
alone in a conscious of doubt
why must i be adrift
it is the burden we pay, my father says
to live this american dream
you must endure
the cracks in his face say elsewise
you must endure
there were days
that I hoped
white suburbia would lay in embers
others
where I longed for a picket fence
no longer behind the two-way mirror
yet
recall how
mom read poems of dynasties past
dimly alit among photos of my grandfather’s village
incense burned its sweet singe
you felt
safe
there is a loneliness
to live within hyphenated space
distinctly american
distinctly other
stretched between
i am
&
i think i am