A Chinaman's Chance (23 page)

learning to read, 62

See also
Education

Lee, Ang, 166

Lee, Li-Young, 61

Lee, Wen Ho, 118–121, 130–133

Lee Kuan Yew, 64–65

Lew, Harry, 143

Li, Jin, 202–203

Liberty, 24, 63, 99, 101, 111, 113, 124, 140.
See also
Freedom

Life
magazine, 81, 92

Life of Pi, The
(film), 166

Limbaugh, Rush, 193

Lin, Jeremy, 161–164

Lin, Maya, 21–22, 175

Lincoln at Gettysburg
(Wills), 25

Lincoln-Douglas debates, 109

Lincoln Memorial, 150

Lindbergh, Charles, 105

Link, Perry, 31, 35, 42, 185

Liu, Dilin, 37, 38

Liu, Goodwin, 134–137

Liu Kuo-yun (General), 77–79, 97, 101

Locke, California, 145

Locke, Gary, 59–60

Los Alamos National Laboratory, 117

LSU Tigers, 157–158

Lucky
magazine, 160

Lucky Ones, The
(Ngai), 126

Lu Xun, 63

McClain, Charles, 127

Macfarlane, Seth, 163

Magnuson Act of 1943, 142

Malaysia, Chinese in
,
55

Manners, 141, 170

Mao Zedong, 31

March on Washington, 150

Marine Corps Officer Candidates School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia, 84–86

Marriage equality, 179

Martin, Trayvon, 152–153

Maslow, Abraham, 71

Maxey, Samuel, 109–110

Mayer, Louis B., 159

Media, 23, 59, 65, 117, 131, 138, 152, 177, 195, 196.
See also
Television

Meritocracy, 100–101, 103, 135, 196, 198

Metaphors, 35, 36–37, 38

Metaphors We Live By, The
(Lakoff and Johnson), 36

Middle class, 109

Miller, John, 110–111

Mineta, Norm, 117

Missionaries, 114

Mississippi River, 27

Missouri State Fair, 150

Mockery, 193–195

Mollenkopf, John, 32

More Like Us
(Fallows), 208

“Mountain Holiday, Thinking of My Brothers in Shandong” (Wang Wei), 181–182

Multiculturalism, 154–155.
See also
Pluralism

Murray, Albert, 155

Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), 175

My Country Versus Me
(Lee and Zia), 118

National Domestic Workers Alliance, 137, 138

Nationalism, 60, 69, 70, 80

Native Americans, 109, 158

Naturalization, 84, 107, 109, 110, 114, 115, 125, 131, 140

“New German Question, The” (Ash), 141

New York Knicks, 161

New York Review of Books,
141

New York Times,
53, 56–57, 66, 174

headlines about Wen Ho Lee, 130–131

New York University School of Medicine, 57

New York World,
115

Ngai, Mae, 126, 128, 129

Nisbett, Richard, 40–41

Nixon, Richard, 98

Non-Alien designation, 117

Norms, 141–142, 172

Obama, Barack, 135, 150

Obedience to authority, 63

Obligation, 15, 20, 24, 101, 163, 166.
See also
Duty

Opportunity, 102, 103, 104, 163, 208

Page, Horace, 107, 133

Pakistani workers, 67

Parenting, 23, 37, 38, 163, 189

alone in divorce, 187

mothering styles, 204

Tiger parenting, 195, 196, 199

Parker, James A., 131–133

Patriotism, 24, 70

Pearl Harbor, 81, 99, 117

People v. Hall,
137

Pfaelzer, Jean, 138

Philadelphia, 176

National Constitution Center in, 124

Sworn-Again America ceremony in, 140

Philippines, Chinese in, 55

Pinker, Steven, 39–40

Platt, Oliver, 110

Plessy v. Ferguson,
128, 129

Plot Against America, The
(Roth), 105

Pluralism, 20.
See also
Multiculturalism

Power, 176

soft vs. hard power, 99

Prayer, 18, 19

“Princes and Powers” (Baldwin), 71

Privilege, 102, 103, 152

Puritanism, 20

Purpose-Driven Life, The
(Warren), 23

Quakers, 20

Quemoy and Matsu islets, 97

Quiet
(Cain), 169–170

Racism, 22–23, 108, 110, 112

racist caricatures in sports, 157–159

Rape of Nanjing, 5

Reconstruction, 111

Redskins NFL franchise, 158

Remembering Denny
(Trillin), 92

Republicans, 135–136

Republic of China, 80.
See also
Taiwan

Responsibility, 2, 24, 27, 140, 170, 187

“Rethinking Constitutional Welfare Rights” (G. Liu), 136

Rights, 25, 26, 27.
See also
Civil rights; Human rights

Rituals, 14, 17–18, 20

Rivers, 26–27

Robinson, Jackie, 29

Rodriguez, Richard, 38

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 133

Roth, Philip, 105, 164

Rubenfeld, Jed, 102, 159

Samson, Frank, 100, 101

San Francisco, 126

exclusion from San Francisco public schools, 127

San Francisco fire (1906), 121

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, 39–40

Search for Modern China,
The
(Spence), 6

Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team, 178

Seattle's Chinatown/International District, 175, 178

Seattle Times,
179

Seligman, Scott, 113, 114

Selves, 16, 17, 208

self-esteem, 163

self-improvement, 1, 24, 162, 169, 171

self-knowledge, 167, 199

Senghor, Leopold, 71–72

Sense and Sensibility
(film), 166

“Sharing Memories and Telling Stories: American and Chinese Mothers and Their 3-Year-Olds” (Q. Wang), 204

Sitcoms, 163

Slavery, 109, 110–111, 115, 136, 155

Smith, Adam, 24, 25

Socrates, 10

Sons of the American Revolution, 124, 139, 140–141

South Africa, Chinese in, 55

Southern Cross the Dog
(Cheng), 165

Spence, Jonathan, 6

Spoken Standard Chinese
(Huang and Stimson), 45

Spolin, Viola, 167

Standing Out in Chinatown
(video), 174

Starr, Rebecca, 200

Stereotypes, 91, 100, 149, 158, 166, 194

of manhood, 199

model-minority stereotype, 196

Stimson, Hugh M., 45

Students, 58–59, 66, 100, 124, 176, 193

graduate students returning to China, 91

Success, 102, 163

Sun Tzu, 7

Sun Yat Sen, 69–70

Supreme Court, 125, 135

Susman, Warren, 170

Taiwan, 62, 80, 93, 94, 137

and China and America, 98

Din Tai Fung dumpling house in Taipei, 201

economic miracle in, 83, 88–89

family home in, 96

General Association of Chinese Culture, 99

National Tsinghua University
and
National Central University in, 89

population of, 91

Taipei, 6, 69, 81–82, 96, 194, 201

Taiwan Strait, 97

Taoism, 21, 62

Tape, Joseph and Mary, 126, 128–129

Tape, Mamie, 127, 129

Taste, 160

Television, 150–151.
See also
Media

Thailand, Chinese in, 54

Theory of Moral Sentiments
(Smith), 24

Tibet, 54, 69

Tiger parents, 37, 163

Tiger Writing:
Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self
(Jen), 165, 178

Tomahawk chop, 158

Translation(s), 5, 6, 9, 13, 15, 35, 36, 191

of classical Chinese into colloquial Chinese (
baihua
), 8, 12

of
junzi
as “gentleman,” 7

and meaning, 10

of poetry, 181–182

See also
Chinese language

Trillin, Calvin, 92

Triple Package, The
(Chua and Rubenfeld), 102

“Turning Japanese” (song), 22–23

Tu Weiming, 16

Unions, 137

United States, 14, 27, 64, 80, 99–100

aging Americans, 138–139

American dream, 63, 92, 103, 135

American elite, 100

Americanness, 95, 112, 129, 151, 153, 208, 209

anchor babies on American soil, 139

anti-Chinese movement in, 112

and China, 98, 100, 107, 108

Confederacy, 110

dominance of, 208

foreign student populations in, 58

immigration service in, 121–124

number of people of Chinese ancestry in, 55–56 (
see also
Chinese Americans)

popular culture in, 23

preferred personality type in, 169–170

regional folkways in, 20

social mobility in, 92, 100

US Navy, 97

See also
Constitution of US; Declaration of Independence; Supreme Court

United States v. Wong Kim Ark,
125

USA
(dos Passos), 155–156

Usefulness/uselessness, 38, 42

Vasantkumar, Chris, 69, 70

Vietnam Memorial, 21

Virtue, cultivation of, 170

Vivaldi, Antonio, 168–169

Voting rights, 110

Wages, 112, 137

wage theft, 138

Wang, Alexander, 160

Wang, Eva, 160

Wang, Qi, 204

Wang Wei, 181–182

Warlordism, 62

Warner, Jack and Harry, 159

Warren, Rick, 23

Waters, Mary, 32

Weber, Max, 14

Wen Ho Lee.
See
Lee, Wen Ho

When China Rules the World
(Jacques), 54

Whiteness, 151, 152, 158

Whorf, Benjamin, 39

Wikipedia, 56

Wills, Garry, 24–25

Winged Seed, The
(L. Lee), 61

Wing Luke Asian Museum, 175

Wintour, Anna, 160

Women, 65–66, 104

organizing women, 137–138

Wong, Joe, 172–173

Wong Chin Foo, 112–116, 126

Wong Kim Ark, 125, 126, 139

Workingmen's Party of California, 112

World on Fire
(Chua) 55

World War II, 81, 99

Wright, Richard, 71–72

Wu, Frank, 57

Wu, Jason, 160

Xi Jinping, 63

Yale University, 6

Yankee Stadium, 157

Yao Ming, 162

Yick Wo v. Hopkins,
127

Yoke Leen, 138

Yokohama Yankee
(Helm), 67

Yu, Charles, 166

Yu Dan, 14

Yuen, Gene, 57

Zen Buddhism, 10

Zucker, Adolph, 159

About the Author

Eric Liu is founder and CEO of Citizen University. He is the author of the New York Times
Notable Book
The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native
Speaker; Guiding Lights: How to Mentor—and Find Life's Purpose;
and coauthor, with Nick Hanauer, of
The
Gardens of Democracy
. He served as a White House speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and later as the president's deputy domestic policy adviser. He is a columnist for CNN.com and a correspondent for
The Atlantic
. He lives in Seattle with his family. Follow him on Twitter @ericpliu.

Copyright © 2014 by Eric Liu

Published in the United States by PublicAffairs™, a Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107.

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[email protected]
.

Book design by Pauline Brown

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Liu, Eric.

A Chinaman's chance : one family's journey and the Chinese American dream/ Eric Liu.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61039-195-5 (e-book) 1. Liu, Eric. 2. Chinese Americans—Biography. 3. Chinese Americans—Ethnic identity. 4. Chinese Americans—Cultural assimilation. 5. Children of immigrants—United States—Biography. 6. Parent and child—United States. 7. Chinese Americans—Languages. 8. United States—Race relations. I. Title. II. Title: One family's journey and the Chinese American dream.

E184.C5L622 2004

305.8951073—dc23

2014007474

First Edition

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