Sublime

Bad English is best shared offline, in a book or performed live; it’s an interactive diction that must be read aloud to be understood, but even if I don’t quite understand it, those chewy syllables just feel familial to me, no matter the cultural source, which is why it brings together racial groups outside whiteness.

English tuned an experience that should be in the minor key to a major key; there was an intimacy and melancholy in Korean that were lost when I wrote in English, a language which I, from my childhood, associated with customs officers, hectoring teachers, and Hallmark cards. Even after all those years since I learned English, I still couldn’t shake

In weeks, no one seemed to remember he was Chinese at all.

This is America, we would say to ourselves, there is no need to worry. And we would be wrong.

I was pulled deeper into the current of language.

In weeks, no one seemed to remember he was Chinese at all.

This was our contribution to the war effort, we were told. An opportunity for us to prove our loyalty.

Readers, teachers, and editors told me in so many words that I should write whatever felt true to my heart but that since I was Asian, I might as well stick to the subject of Asians, even though no one cared about Asians, but what choice did I have since if I wrote about, say, nature, no one would care because I was an Asian person writing about na

hula dancers and prostitutes both provided “entertainment”