mapo tofu and mcdonalds

Reading Sarah Vowell's "Partly-Cloudy Patriot" essay got me thinking a lot about what being a patriot means to someone like me. Both of my parents are Chinese immigrants who moved to America in search of a different life. To them, the secondary moniker of America: the land of the free, really was glorious and promising enough to leave their country for. 

After a few years in America, they had me in Peoria, Illinois. I was born under the stars and stripes, but with black hair and eyes, tan skin, and a foreign tongue. Of course, over time, I assimilated. Quite well, in fact. I lost my fluency in the dialect that I was often praised for by my grandparents back in Shenyang, and my first language was rapidly replaced with boisterous, flawless American English. My parents also made successful efforts to become more American, talking to me in English so often I rarely needed to use Chinese. 

There would always be two restaurants our family would visit on our road trips back to Illinois. There was Mapo Xiao Guan, a small Chinese restaurant near Chicago, and then there was the McDonald's off the highway exit. My brother and I would insist on going to each one, associating both the taste of spicy silken tofu and barbecue-drenched chicken nuggets with home. 

This is Mapo Tofu

These are McDonalds Chicken McNuggets

yum

My family went on a month-long vacation to China this summer. It was the first time we've gone back in seven years. As my brother and I walked through our parents respective hometowns, streets that had been familiar to us a decade ago, we felt like aliens. We were unable to read half the signage, constantly pestering our parents with, "zhe shi shen me yi si?"---"What does this mean?", and laughing uncomfortably as we tried to comprehend our third-grand-aunt's jokes about how bad we were at Chinese. Though the comparison is cliché, I don't think there was a more fitting way to describe us other than fish out of water. My time in China was filled with good food just like my mom's cooking, but also many sobering experiences in which I realized I was truly an outsider in my own grandparents' home. 

This was me and my brother in china

Strangely, though, it wasn't relief that washed over me while crossing through the LAX security lines. Though I didn't have to guess what the TSA officers were asking me to do while sweating nervously, I found myself missing the indiscriminate unity that I discovered in China. In China, everyone was an aunt, an uncle, a grandma, or a grandpa. Despite my broken speech, I always knew enough to be treated as one of their own children. Conversations in the taxis would be easy, small talk with strangers was invited instead of awkward. Here, my only family is the three other people living in my house, and the occasional elderly Chinese couple who smile and thank me after translating what crappy meal options Delta Airlines is serving on the flight (hint for elderly Chinese couples: do not get the chicken meal, it will not have good rice). Unity is far and few between in America, socially and politically. That fact is both a blessing and a curse. Our differences define us, drawing a gaping chasm between our lives. This is not to say that it is impossible to form connections with people who are different from us. At times, though, it really does feel like you are standing solitary in a sea of other heritages and histories, struggling to find familiarity, alone and out of place. 

This is what it means to be Asian-American. Forever filed into the "Other" category, we'll always be stuck between two identities, between McDonald's drive-thrus and mapo tofu. My family will always watch the Super Bowl while folding dumplings. We'll listen to the singer belt out the national anthem and know all the words. Always American in a million different ways, from our favorite sports teams and singers, but always Chinese, in our aspirations and traditions. Always harboring a feeling of incompleteness, a certain homesickness, no matter where we are. 

In the melting pot that is our nation, I am just one of millions of fragmented children. We are inextricably tied to this land; it is where our allegiances lie, whether during the Olympics or, unavoidably, in times of conflict as well. Like Paine's sunshine patriot, I am quick to denounce America when I disagree with its actions and government. However, like Vowell, I do dearly love this country. The stars and stripes; the romantic ideals that we are supposed to represent; and the diverse people of the nation that, in their dedication to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are still a testament to the success of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. Regardless of all my inner turmoil, the United States is my only home.  

Now, more than ever, as tension, dissatisfaction, and fear are present in every corner, it is not easy to proclaim pride in being American. Especially for immigrants, who are increasingly being persecuted by the leaders of this nation. To other nations, our flag has become a symbol of the very thing we swore we would defend against. We are no longer the paragon of progress, but pariahs in a progressing world. Even so, I have to have faith that we, the partly-something, confused Americans, will remain resolute in preserving those four golden words that promised freedom to our parents all those years ago. 

Of course, there are four more that are spoken in conjunction that I feel are most pertinent in light of the events this year. When compiled, they guide my hopes for the uncertain future. 

"Land of the Free, Home of the Brave"