They asked what was America
And what it means to be an American
And fed up with history and philosophy
I told them I had no idea, nobody did
And so they asked me then are you proud
Proud to be an American?
And I told them my parents were Chinese
And so am I it appears,
The son of unromantic immigrants,
And no one calls me American
But I’m called Chinese a lot.
And they said You’ve got to be an American
You were born here right?
And I told them, no longer fed up
With history and philosophy
What they already knew
That America was a land of immigrants
And that while people see me and say “Chinese”
And see Jews and say “Jew”
No one looks at the German-Irish-British-Scandinavian-Italian-Pole
As anything but American,
But hell
The blacks are still called Blacks
And African-American.
American simply means
That’s where you were born
Or that’s where you’re living.
American doesn’t mean who you are.
So I’m proud to be an American I guess
Or I’m proud to be where I’m living in America
Where the housing rates are steady
And the people are good
But I’m not proud of who I am
And no one should be
Because who you are is made by other people.
And the people who asked me about America
Gave me a funny look
And all walked away
But the last thing they said was
“Fuckin’ chinks don’t know what it means to be patriotic”
And I guess they were right.
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2 comments:
As a fellow immigrant, jew, and general stranger to this country, I smiled the entire way through this. I think you've got a lot of good points and a lot of great things to say. A bit of a downer, but ends on an uppity note, which you don't usually do but worked really nicely here.
I do want to say that I humbly believe that it's how you do what you do that defines who you are, and not other people. I'd like to debate this with you, sometime when we both have time.
I like this, Stephen. Really, I do.
It might be one of my all time favorite pieces that you've done.
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