Excerpt from The Assimilation Game Anna Yeh ’23
Scene 8 After several days of prying, Anne is frustrated and fed up with Ama, she feels she has gotten nowhere knowing about her heritage and culture and that Ama has closed herself off. Anne enters the kitchen and puts her hands on the back of a chair. ANNE Why won’t you tell me? Ama ignores her, moves around the kitchen. AMA (Gram) Here, do you want a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner? ANNE No, I want you to teach me the stuff Aunt Linda told me about. I want you to have a conversation with me in Mandarin. I want you to share one detail about your life with me that doesn’t have to do with America. Please (she says, desperately and annoyedly) Ama doesn’t answer, moves to go into the kitchen to start making the sandwich. Anne watches, annoyed as Ama takes the bread out of the fridge and turns the stovetop on. Anne crosses her arms, she is thoroughly irritated.
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mosaic
ANNE You know things aren’t like they were back then Gram, people aren’t constantly out to get you just because you’re different. AMA (Gram) Really? So those shootings of Asian women in Georgia last spring don’t mean anything to you? ANNE No! That’s not what I was sayin--AMA (Gram) The prejudice is still there, you can’t see it because you don’t remember the worst of it, but I do. ANNE Look, I’m not saying that racism is gone or something, I’m just saying it’s light years better than before. And I know COVID made asians a target for white supremacists, but teaching me a little about my own culture isn’t going to increase my chances of getting shot by a racist! AMA (Gram) That’s what you don’t understand, every immigrant in this country has had to play the game. We either assimilate and lose our identity to succeed, or we guard our culture until it destroys us. They don’t see us until we make ourselves seen,
