Alvin Lau speaks about what it feels like to live as Asian American, about what to expect from this bi-cultural identity.
Categories: Features
Alvin Lau speaks about what it feels like to live as Asian American, about what to expect from this bi-cultural identity.
Categories: Features
Asian American Theological Forum 
Wow, I love the veracity, the intensity, the clarity of Lau’s ode to Asian America. As a 3Gen American Chinese (paternal granddad came to CA in 1916) I was straining to connect with the depths of his search for Asian America. Still and yet, I know that my identity requires that I make solid connections with my Chinese heritage, the quadruple immigration paths that resulted in my parents finding each other and making me and my 3 siblings, my mainstream American culture self, and the racialization that is part of my daily experience as an Asian American.
Methinks he protests too much. I don’t know where this guy is located, but in southern California, it’s all around you. You can be as ethnic as you want, we have dining and cultural organizations galore. It is up to each individual to define how Asian he wants to be. As a 3rd generation Chinese American, being with other Asian Americans is enough. I marched with the Los Angeles Chinese Imperial Dragons Drum and Bugle Corp. I was a member of the Omega Sigma Tau, the Asian fraternity at UCLA. I started and was the first editor of UCLA’s Asian American campus publication, Pacific Ties, which is still publishing. I have attended Asian American Christian churches for the last 40 years. But in 1977, I went to Taiwan as part of the Overseas Chinese cultural study tour (the “Chinese Love Boat”), and once there, felt like more like a tourist than a prodigal son, so foreign everything was to me. I didn’t embrace the opportunity to study the language. Most of our free time was spent eatting large numbers of plates of dim sum (incredibly inexpensive with exchange rate at the time) or seeking out the coldest Taiwan Beer, as it was tropical weather (hot and humid) during the summer. So chase Asian America if you want, it’s really what you make it.