Asian Experience Quotes

“Throughout my life, I had felt the weight of indebtedness. I was born into a deficit because I was a daughter rather than the son to replace my parents' dead son. I continued to depreciate in value with each life decision I made that did not follow my parents' expectations. Being indebted is to be cautious, inhibited, and to never speak out of turn. It is to lead a life constrained by choices that are never your own. The man or woman who feels comfortable holding court at a dinner party will speak in long sentences, with heightened dramatic pauses, assured that no one will interject while they're mid-thought, whereas I, who am grateful to be invited, speak quickly in clipped compressed bursts, so that I can get a word in before I'm interrupted.

If the indebted Asian immigrant thinks they owe their life to America, the child thinks they owe their livelihood to their parents for their suffering. The indebted Asian American is therefore the ideal neoliberal subject. I accept that the burden of history is solely on my shoulders; that it's up to me to earn back reparations for the losses my parents incurred, and to do so, I must, without complaint, prove myself in the workforce.”
― Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning