ABSTRACT
I feel like post-Vietnam wave of immigrant, that we really don’t have the Asian American identity that’s been identified [as] the Asian American experience ... We should be able to identify ourselves and categorize ourselves into the “Other Asian” ... For [Asian Americans] it’s all like idealizing of the American value, of hard work and money. But then for the Other Asian, my kind came here for liberation, to liberate, to be like free as opposed to come here to see America as a prospect. We came here because it was bad in our country, and it’s better here for us. So our reason to be here is to start a whole new life, but not start a whole new life and put ourselves as part of the American pie. That’s how I see it. We’re not here to say we want to be a part of this. We’re here because we’re running away from what happened. We didn’t get run away, we got chased out, not even by our own people, by America itself. The whole bombing, Nixon and stuff, the bombing in Cambodia allowed Pol Pot to come in. Really though, I see it like we don’t even want to be here.
