Status Updates From Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir

… wanted nothing to do with that. We lived on to fight a good fight.”

… to this right of passage that I was never going to join. This assimilation to whiteness. It’s a funny position being Asian in America. You’re the dude who can cross the union line. Your community actually wants you to sell the fuck out and work in law, accounting, or banking. But I realized then I wasn’t going to cross the picket line just to get a nut. I was down with the rotten bananas who wanted…

“In the end, some people can only keep up the hip-hop thing so long. I think hip-hop is real for a lot of White and Asian kids, but there’s a point of diminishing returns. That’s when they make an upward assimilation. I didn’t listen to hip-hop for strategic reasons. I loved it. I needed it. Watching my. Asian friends move away from hip-hop. Opened my eyes to this right of passage that I was never going to…