It paralyzes me to think about the sacrifices my family made before I was in my mother’s womb. When they came here they knew they would lose a part of their language, their memories, their sanctity of self.
Vanessa Hua discusses her debut collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, writing fiction in order to understand life as an American-born child of immigrants, and the importance of literary community.
Unwittingly, my mother teaches me in this conversation her generation’s word for gay: 同性恋. I look it up in an online dictionary, three characters in my mother’s tongue. Same, sex, and love.
I assume he’s going to drop us off, wish us luck, and speed away. But instead Little Wei slams on his brakes, turns off the ignition, and says, “I will climb, too.”