Sublime

Commodified Hawaiian culture—the “luau,” the “hula girl,” and “aloha”—became part of the American vernacular and everyday life.

Chinatown and indeed being Chinese is and always has been, from the very beginning, a construction, a performance of features, gestures, culture, and exoticism. An invention, a reinvention, a stylization. Figuring out the show, finding our place in it, which was the background, as scenery, as nonspeaking players. Figuring out what you’re allowed to

while most Americans might not be able to tell the difference between me, a forty-one-year-old first-generation Korean immigrant raised in an educated middle-class household, and the first-generation undocumented immigrant from Fujian Province who delivers their meals, that doesn’t mean some bond has been forged out of this misunderstanding.

He has a kind, round face and the relaxed, easygoing manner of someone who’s spent most of his life in California.