My Asian American Mom

By Midas Leung

Recentlyin my Asian American class, I was tasked with doing an interview with my mother which showed me how much I already understood my mother. However, she did clarify a couple of misconceptions regarding her stories. One of my ancestors, for instance, was the child of a prostitute who I found out was Scottish. The funny thing is that the prostitute was Scottish and my ancestor was the Chinaman (what a player). Later I found that I had a family curse that only affected the family’s males. All males will be heavily disabled or die by the age of fifty. A couple of my ancestors have met that fate: One was blinded when a hook attached to his bike detached and hooked his eye out; another had just bought a moped and was transporting it across a river to show it his friends and family, but while doing so, a storm rushed through and he was never found. Yet the boat carrying the moped safely crossed the river. Then there was my father who died in his sleep similarly to my uncle.

After I learned that, I realized that I was nearing my 20s so it only makes sense I should be having a midlife crisis and getting out of this pREMIeR sUNy oF NEw yOrk and go do something with my life. But I am my mother’s retirement plan, and can’t stop it now. My mom escaped Hong Kong because of the Communist threat that is the commie fucks that is the Chinese Communist Party. Her father pushed her to go to America and pursue its many opportunities and human rights. She would travel to New York and study accounting at Hunter College. Later she would meet my father and then just dip out of college and just forget her student visa and become an illegal immigrant (WOOO!). She would continue to live in New York and work in sweatshops around the city. One day Immigration Customs Enforcement would pop up and her boss would rush all dem illegals into the stairwell. See, my mom was smart: she was not a sheep like the others, so she decided to hide on the roof. Now you already know, since I am writing this paper, that she was not caught. The story would end anti-climactically as this was the 90s; immi- gration was not that big a problem and so the agents just knocked on the door and just asked for the worker roster and that was it.

My mom would then get her citizenship thanks to everyone’s favorite reformed orthodox rabbi Bill Clinton. She gained a form of permanent residency by working for a newspaper company as a Chinese translator. While working there, she saw the first plane hit the twin towers while pregnant with my sister. (Nothing more to add on, just a fun fact.) She would then give birth to my sister, my older brother, then me, and after that, my younger brother. How do I know this? It’s not because my older siblings look older than me. Its because my dad was a fucking camera addict: he recorded every single birth. Those tapes would be in my family collection of home videos, scaring me for years to come and then soon my own children. After learning the full story of my mother, I would spend about 4 hours making the somewhat okayest paper I have ever written (meaning I bullshitted it). I got a 93 while my other two papers I had spent 12 hours on got lower grades. WTF is the point in trying for this shit. I gonna go eat crayons and join the military cya later suckers.