Second Generation Quotes

“So I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why I was ever born at all.”
― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

“In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English.”
― Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

“The problem with her, with her friends, was that there was nothing really serious to worry about. No war. No famine. The world might be filled with catastrophes, but none were poised to intrude in their lucky lives. The concerns of her father's generation were so much more vital. More global. Saina and her friends might travel the world, but no one lived or died on what they did - having an art gallery in Berlin was not the same was fighting an army of Communists. Worrying, Saina realized, was a luxury in itself. The luxury of purpose.”
― Jade Chang, The Wangs vs. the World

“The expectation of justice is not a privilege with which I had been raised, and staring at the piece of paper, it occurs to me how black and white I have made my entire life out to be. I was going to get my justice; it was rightfully mine. How American of me.”
― Anna Qu, Made in China: A Memoir of Love and Labor