ABSTRACT
One day in June 1975, when I walked into the aircraft factory where I was working as an electrician, I saw many large-letter posters on the walls and many people parading around the workshops shouting slogans like “Down with the word T!” and “Trust in masses and the Party!” I then remembered that a new political campaign called “Against Individualism” was scheduled to begin that day. Ten years later, I got back my first English composition paper at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The professor’s first comments were: “Why did you always use ‘we’ instead of ‘I’?” and ‘Your paper would be stronger if you eliminated some sentences in the passive voice.” The clashes between my Chinese background and the requirements of English composition had begun. At the center of this mental struggle, which has lasted several years and is still not completely over, is the prolonged, uphill battle to recapture “myself.”
