“What was it like for them to leave home and cross the Pacific, with only the haziest plans for return? In the absence of available connections, they held onto an imaginary Taiwan, more an abstraction—a beacon, a phantom limb—than an actual island. The available technology delivered them there only on special occasions. So, they searched for traces of home in the faces of their classmates; they heard it wafting above the din when they shopped for groceries.” HomeImmigrationTaiwan Book:Stay True Source: Stay True
“There were aspects of their lives that felt familiar. Their parents were busy working as many jobs as they could, and whatever connection they maintained to the past had more to do with household tradition than politics. Words like 'genocide' and 'trauma' were forbidden. ...To me, Asian American was a messy, arbitrary category, but one that was produced by a collective struggle. It was a category capacious enough for all of our hopes and energies. There were similarities that cut across nationality and. class: the uncommunicative parents, the cultural significance of food, the fact that we all took our shoes off at home.” CommunityIdentityImmigrationAsian AmericanFirst GenerationAssimilation Nondualism Book:Stay True Source: Stay True