Lindo Jong
My daughter wao go to a for her sed honeymoon, but now she is afraid.
"What if I blend in so well they think Im one of them?" Waverly asked me. "What if they do me e back to the Uates?"
"When you go to a," I told her, "you dont eveo open your mouth. They already know you are an outsider."
"What are you talking about?" she asked. My daughter likes to speak back. She likes to question what I say.
"Aii-ya," I said. "Even if you put on their clothes, even if you take off your makeup and hide your fancy jewelry, they know. They know just watg the way you walk, the way you carry your face. They know you do not belong."
My daughter did not look pleased when I told her this, that she didnt look ese. She had a sour Ameri look on her faaybe ten years ago, she would have clapped her hands—hurray!—as if this were good news. But now she wants to be ese, it is so fashionable. And I know it is too late. All those years I tried to teach her! She followed my ese ways only until she learned how to walk out the door by herself and go to school. So now the only ese words she say are sh-sh, houche, chr fan, and gwan deng shweijyau. How she talk to people in a with these words? Pee-pee, choo-choo trai, close light sleep. How she think she blend in? Only her skin and her hair are ese. Inside—she is all Ameri-made.
Its my fault she is this way. I wanted my children to have the best bination: Ameri circumstances and ese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?
I taught her how Ameri circumstances work. If you are born poor here, its no lasting shame. You are first in line for a scholarship. If the roof crashes on your head, o cry over this bad luck. You sue anybody, make the landlord fix it. You do not have to sit like a Buddha under a tree letting pigeons drop their dirty business on your head. You buy an umbrella. o inside a Catholic church. In Ameriobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
She learhese things, but I couldnt teach her about ese character. How to obey parents and listen to your mothers mind. How not to show your own thoughts, to put your feelings behind your face so you take advantage of hidden opportunities. Why easy things are not worth pursuing. How to know your own worth and polish it, never flashing it around like a cheap ring. Why ese thinking is best.
No, this kind of thinking didnt stick to her. She was too busy chewing gum, blowing bubbles bigger than her cheeks. Only that kind of thinking stuck.
"Finish your coffee," I told her yesterday. "Dont throw your blessings away."
"Dont be so old-fashioned, Ma," she told me, finishing her coffee down the sink. "Im my own person."
And I think, How she be her own person? When did I give her up?
My daughter is getting married a sed time. So she asked me to go to her beauty parlor, her famous Mr. Rory. I know her meaning. She is ashamed of my looks. What will her husbands parents and his important lawyer friends think of this backward old ese woman?
"Auntie An-mei cut me," I say.
"Rory is famous," says my daughter, as if she had no ears. "He does fabulous work."
So I sit in Mr. Rorys chair. He pumps me up and down until I am the right height. Then my daughter criticizes me as if I were not there. "See how its flat on one side," she accuses my head. "She needs a cut and a perm. And this purple tint in her hair, shes been doing it