Sublime

According to the scholar Daryl J. Maeda, Asian American veterans reported being humiliated and dehumanized by their fellow GIs as “gooks” while their supposed enemies, the Vietnamese, often identified them as their own. In the 1977 play Honey Bucket by Melvyn Escueta, an old Vietnamese woman touches the black hair of an American soldier named Andy.

You are a good student, as all Orientals are. Despite myself, I felt a small surge of pride. Like all good students, I yearned for nothing but approval, even from fools.