Year in Review - 2002 (Feature) No Exit: Another Act in American Immigration Policy, Post-Sept. 11 (in National News) Upcoming Welfare Cut to Hurt APA Families (in Bay Area News) Ultimate Diversions: 2002 Gamer's Gift Guide (11/29/02) (in Consumer) APA Community Should Tell Shaquille O’Neal to ‘Come down to Chinatown.’ (in Sports) Hot ‘n’ Sour: Primal Scream (in A&E) INS Roundups Put Nation’s Growing Ethnic Media in Bind (in Opinion)

Learning About My Past

I stare out my window watching the old autumn leaves fall to the ground. When I walk to class or raise my hand, no one knows the real truth about who I really am. My Chinese American identity seems just as ordinary as one of the million leaves hanging on that tree.

This winter break I realized how wrong I am and how I’ve taken my Chinese American identity for granted. Even though I haven’t lived enough to tell a good story like my grandparents, that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to tell. Just like that tree outside my window — it’s not just an ordinary tree, it’s an offspring of another very old tree. The Chinese heritage is very long and seems to be so long that people tend to forget about it.

Over the past year I have been very fortunate to learn how to create a digital story. I participated in a program called the Digital Clubhouse, where I was given the opportunity to interview a WWII veteran in order to preserve a fading story. By putting together scanned photos and some Glenn Miller hits I was able to recapture a piece of history. With each movie assignment I discovered a key to a locked treasure chest inside each storyteller. Eventually I decided it would be cool to make a digital story about my family’s story.

When I tell people I’m a fifth generation Chinese American they go into hysteria, as if I’m a walking historical monument. To me it’s something normal, like the opportunity to read English. It used to be that I’d rather spend time studying for school than learning about my heritage. As I grow older and watch the same tree do its normal routine of falling autumn leaves I realize something in me is fading away and falling to the ground.

As I spend time with my family I realize how fortunate I am to have this time together. It’s not like in my kid days, when I saw my relatives and grandparents at least once a week. Now family relatives are getting busy watching their own children growing up and soon I will be too busy with college to visit them.

The clock is ticking and I don’t have much time to complete my movie. None of my previous movies have prepared me for this difficult task. There aren’t many pictures to scan and most of the stories told to me are confusing to understand. Instead of books to read there is only a Chinese diary which I cannot translate, due to my failing Chinese school experience.

Sometimes I think I should just give up because I’m the one that asked myself to do it. Why not give up and take advantage of my winter break, which is every student’s time to do nothing? Then the leaf analogy haunts me again like the ghosts from The Christmas Carol.

This Christmas may be the last one I have to ask my elders about my heritage. Studying or enjoying the Christmas break can be done any time but learning who I am has limits. As people spend time with their family this holiday and this year, I hope that younger generations take the opportunity to learn more about their family’s heritage.

As you nervously wait for your acceptance letters, remember that if it weren’t for your grandparents and ancestors you wouldn’t be here. It’s like that tree I watch outside my window — if it wasn’t for an ancestor tree and its seeds, that tree wouldn’t be alive. That tree and its many leaves are not just any ordinary thing but a small section of a long story to be told.