It was not unexpected that my presentations might connect with many older Chinese Americans since they would have shared with me many similar experiences. In fact, I sometimes wondered why they were so interested in my talks inasmuch as most of what I was telling them, they already "knew." One day I suddenly realized what should have been obvious. Because few had written or publicly spoken about many of the experiences of the second generation children of Chinese immigrants, they felt 'validated' by my presentation of "our" experiences.
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In searching for information about early Chinese laundrymen, I discovered an archive of 'John Jung' letters from the 1920s at the University of North Dakota, which I was, of course, most curious to read. By a remarkable coincidence, the North Dakota John Jung had somewhat similar circumstances and experiences that I, the Georgia John Jung had in growing up when we were in the only Chinese family in our hometowns.
John Jung wrote many letters to one of his elementary school teachers and she saved all of them because she sensed they provided a perspective on his personality development. Of course, we have no copies of her letters sent to John. In contrast, I saved all of the letters sent to me after I left Georgia at age 15 from two white adult men who 'mentored' and befriended me when I was growing up. It was fascinating for me to write about the 'two sides of the coin' for the correspondence from North Dakota John Jung to his teacher and the letters from my mentors to me. Both attest to the powerful and positive influences that two Chinese boys, growing up in cultural isolation, received from supportive and nurturant non Chinese in their communities. A challenge here was that many members of this group were not fluent in English, and the question was whether a coherent presentation could be made using a translator, which would mean that I had to condense my material for the allotted time. When I started writing, I made it clear that I was only giving my own experiences and did not presume to be speaking for other Chinese from laundry families or for other Chinese from the Deep South I was worried that other Chinese would have experiences that differed widely from mine. It has been most reassuring, in one sense, that I have received numerous e-mails and in-person conversations with Chinese who share very common experiences with me. For example, other Southerners are quick to confirm my reflections just as Chinese who grew up in laundries report very similar feelings and experiences about their lives. I get interesting e-mails from readers from time to time who are kind enough to share their experiences. One of the more unusual ones involved compliments on the Chinese Laundry book but it also asked about some Chinese characters on the book cover. Specifically, the reader, a person who obviously knew how to read Chinese, wondered if his rendering of the tiny barely legible Chinese characters next to "OVERALLS" on laundry check list, which he translated to be 'greasy clothes,' was correct. Growing up in a laundry was not something that I felt like bragging about or disclosing to acquaintances. However, after doing research for writing "Southern Fried Rice," I discovered much to be proud about the significant role that these 'unsung heroes' running Chinese laundries had on the future success of their children and later generations. Of course, the Chinese laundry has almost completely vanished into history so that newer generations of whatever ethnicity have no knowledge about how important they were for Chinese in North America. I decided to pay tribute to these pioneers by writing their history. I was fortunate to recruit 8 or 9 other Chinese who also grew up in laundries to write about their own experiences and memories of what it was like to have a family laundry business. Each person wrote independently of the others and none of them were even acquainted with each other. I was amazed at how similar their experiences were, even though they came from widely different parts of the U. S. and Canada. Since the book came out, I have met many other "children of Chinese laundries" who have shared their similar experiences. One of the fascinating byproducts of my foray into Chinese American history is that I have been able to help people trace their personal family history. I was able to help several people locate their parents' immigration files at the National Archives, not an easy task, but most rewarding to read the transcripts of the interrogations that Chinese immigrants had to endure and survive. When I started writing about Chinese American history, I did not plan to give presentations, but fortunately, several community and historical organizations such as Chinese American history museums and activist groups invited me to talk. It was gratifying to see the positive response. At the same time, I was a bit surprised because I discovered I was not telling the audience much that they did not already "know' from their own experiences. I finally realized that much of their enthusiasm was because someone was finally helping tell and record "their" story. After each talk, several people would come up and tell me how applicable my experiences were to their own lives growing up as children of immigrants, irrespective of what part of the country they came from. As luck would have it, the Georgia Literary Festival, which is held each year in a different locale, was in my hometown of Macon in 2006. It was a special opportunity to return after so many years to the site that was the locale where the events in Southern Fried Rice occurred. I was in Atlanta in 2005 to give a paper at the Asian American Studies conference. Again, press releases allowed the local Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) to know of my visit and they invited me to speak at their dinner. The event was almost a total disaster because the event started about an hour late due to problems with the restaurant not realizing that 100 guests were coming. So, I wisely chopped my prepared talk to 15 mins in view of the late hour, but the Q & A surprisingly went for an hour. This informality played to my abilities honed from years of college teaching to 'work the audience.' Afterwards, I got 2 more invites to come back to Atlanta the next month, one to give a Keynote Address to a black tie dinner gala for Who's Who in Asian Americans in Georgia and to give a talk about Southern Fried Rice to the local chapter of National Association of Asian American Professionals. Both of these opportunities just fell into my lap, and I decided to accept the challenges, and they both went very well. |
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