Asian American

By Sandy Tan

This poem is an exercise in claiming my place in history—as a member of a community but also as an individual. It explores some thoughts I frequently have about my Asian American identity and living in New York.

Are you a Banana or a Twinkie?
If you’re Asian, it doesn’t make a difference
At least that’s what the stock clerk told Mom 
when we were shopping at the supermarket.
After 15 minutes spent in the orange pile,
She drifted to the bananas
“Bananas are bananas,” he interjected
Mom laughs at his ignorance and picks up two of them
She waves her right hand 
holding the yellow-skinned fruit
“This American”
She shows him the other one
it was short, stout
“This Asian.”
Maybe it was the condescending glance 
the clerk gave me or the murderous smell of durian
but at that moment 
I felt ashamed
Ashamed that Mom had spoken out about a banana 
in her broken English.
We didn’t appear to him as American,
but in this moment I didn’t feel
Asian either.

If you ask for a fork in the restaurant to eat a bowl of rice,
If you can’t communicate with your grandparents in Taishanese,
If you don’t understand the old lady asking for directions on Mott Street,
If you don’t get straight As,
If you don’t play the piano, 
If you can’t read the newspaper your parents read,
If you don’t cook rice in a rice cooker,
If you don’t aspire to be a pharmacist,
If you don’t wash dishes by hand,
then what kind of Asian are you?
The ones they call Bananas
or Twinkies.
Yellow,
but white.

I ask Mom what she thinks of this, but she doesn’t care much.
She says
I am American and I should be proud
She says it’s okay 
to not use chopsticks
She says it’s okay
to talk to my grandparents in broken Chinese
She says it’s okay
to not understand the old ladies in Chinatown
to be less than perfect
to not know “Clair de Lune”
to read the New York Times instead of 星島日報
to make rice on the stovetop.

She says it’s okay I don’t want to be a doctor
dishwashers are a scam
The only type of Asian I
should be is me—
her daughter.
Asian,
but American.