(Untitled)

As Chinese American, I would like to share my experience with double consciousness. First off, I was born in Taiwan and moved to California when I was still a baby. My dad was spent a lot of his youth in southern China and my mom was born in the Bronx and grew up in Miami. Both of them had parents who stuck to traditions pretty well and they are still being practiced today in the family. Our furniture arrangements are somewhat strange and traditional, we have "hot pot" dinners, celebrate Chinese holidays with relatives and have huge family dinners. Although we have family traditions dating way back to our ancestors in China, you can say that my family now is pretty Americanized considering that we are literate in English, eat American food and follow American customs.

I would say that I am technically the third generation of my family in America. My parents speak Chinese and my parents' parents spoke Chinese, but my brother and I speak only English and a little Spanish. Connecting with the reading, my brother and I follow the inevitable trend of Americanization. It's weird when I think about it. But it just happens when you're born in a community dominated by white people and customs and my parents never really were strict on learning Chinese or kept me away from Japanese kids like the mom from "Clay Walls." They didn't say that I had to be a doctor, engineer or some kind of genius scientist. My parents gave me a lot of freedom compared to some of the fictional characters from Bold Words and I am grateful for that and I am also grateful for being in America during a time of greater equality.