We Need to Pass on Our Stories
I am genuinely curious — here’s a question for you, your Asian American friends, or any friend from an immigrant family:
How often do your parents tell you stories of adversity or proud moments in your family’s history?
Or if your parents are first generation, how many stories have you heard about what it was like growing up in Asia? Or even what your grandparents did for work?
If the responses from friends around me were any indication, chances are that you haven’t heard many, if any, stories. And I’m not talking about a response like, “It was difficult, but we came to America so that you can have a good life. So study hard!” I mean full stories: characters, setting, plot, beginning, middle, and end.
I’m half Korean, half White. On my White side, I remember being told so many times as a child about how my great-great-great (great?) grandparents came from Nova Scotia. I listened to my uncles regale us with stories of plowing cars into snowbanks, bullying and being bullied, and attending Catholic school in Minnesota.
These stories, while they might not always be the most engaging as a kid, bring humans together. They situate us within a context of where our parents and their parents came from, what they went through to come here, stay and struggle to make the United States their home.
You know — being voiceless isn’t always a choice,
Language can uplift or it repress.
It’s not that my Korean side of the family doesn’t have stories to tell. They all came here speaking zero English, my mom attending community college before graduating from MassArt, and picking up English at the 7-Eleven and other places where she worked. And my grandparents straight-up lived through the Japanese occupation of Korea. They must have stories to tell, right?
And yet I’ve only heard their stories in bits and pieces from my uncles and aunts, from my mom at times (catching me off-guard, as I’m more accustomed to suggestions that I exercise more frequently), and from my sister (we share the bits and pieces we do hear).
For one reason or another, this side of my family just doesn’t tell that many stories. And this is not just an Asian American phenomenon — talking to my buddy Ray, whose father is a first-generation immigrant from Iraq, it seems like a trend for so many families who come to the United States. Once you arrive, it’s like you have a new purpose, and while you — as the first-generation immigrant — will retain the context, cultures, and histories of where you came from, so much of it gets lost when transliterating these cultures, stories, and histories to your American children who have not lived in or even visited the places where your stories — and your parents’ — stories took place.
So I’m going to tell you a story from my grandfather. It’s not a unique story to just him alone, and that’s kind of the point. It’s not a unique story to him, nor to so many immigrants and others in the United States.
But if we tell these stories to one another, walk in each others’ shoes, and let others know that they’re not alone in going through whatever it is they’re going through — it’s how we’re going to transcend race, class, generational and other divisions here.
The setting
But for a better life
He — smiled, nodded walked away,
put down his pride
willingly,
No matter the fight picked with him
It’s chilling — how he
Could be — dry eyed — after a lifetime of this system.
Before my grandfather passed away in February last year, my mom and her siblings spent a lot of time with him, back and forth, to and from the hospital. During one of those trips, he told my mom a story from when he first arrived in the United States. It happened when he was living here alone, working at a restaurant and sending money back to the family while they waited for years for green card approval.
I’ve written lyrics — a song called “Narrate At Last”—which elaborate on this encounter. (The lyrics are set to a hip hop instrumental that I produced.) The long and short of his story is that a cop pulled her gun on him when he was heading home one night, threatening jail time and demanding a bribe.
Click here to read the lyrics
(Underneath the lyrics, there’s a link to click back to here)
Being voiceless isn’t always a choice
Language can uplift or it repressSo Storytelling is a tool — that Asians can’t forget to use…
In true fashion of an article on the internet, I added a GIF at the beginning. While certainly more humorous than my own lyrics, Hasan Minhaj’s Homecoming King is a great example of sharing stories that resonate. It was actually my buddy Ray who told me to watch it. Even though he’s half Iraqi and grew up in New York City, so many of the stories in Minhaj’s show resonate with him, as they do for me.
So I guess my ask — is to you to — tell stories
About the present through the past.
That’s how we — join with our American brothers and sisters
As we march past race and class.
And although the story I tell about my grandfather is upsetting, the purpose of this article is not to draw attention to all the injustice and racism that my grandparents and family and so many others persevere through.
Its purpose is to encourage more stories to be told. When you listen to the song or read my lyrics, I’m hoping to spark a memory or experience in your own mind, no matter your background, to empathize, listen, then share your own story, whether it’s from yourself or someone in your family or community.
Stories Can Come From a Million and One Places
Artists,
Writers painters dancers parents and singers,
Tell stories that resonate
Yes, stories can come from expected channels, such as writing or other forms of creative expression. But even more important, they need to come from you, and from those around us: our parents, siblings, children, and communities.
And There’s No Story Too Big or Small
And storytelling is a tool that Asians can’t forget to use — there’s truth to that.
Just cuz you’re a model minority —
Doesn’t mean you don’t have your own cherry tree —
So don’t stay silent or talk last.
Your stories belong in the interwoven, multilayered melting pot that is the American canon. We all know the cherry tree myth — that George Washington, as a child, chopped down his father’s cherry tree and when asked, told his father with full honesty that he had indeed chopped down the tree. But what does this story even mean?😂
If there is room in the American canon for a mysteriously disappeared cherry tree, then there is certainly room for your family’s stories, both big and small, triumphant and distressing, to be added to and enrich our canon as a nation.
The Language Barrier
You know — Being voiceless isn’t always a choice,
Language can uplift or it repress.
Most stories are told orally or via writing. But just as language can act as a medium to tell these stories, it can also function as a barrier that prevents them from being told. This duality reminds me of all the ways in which the model minority myth goes hand-in-hand with the quieter political voice that Asian Americans generally exercise, and how this voice is quite literally affected by language barriers.
…You put up with the rest,
Don’t complain —
Nod and walk away, man — there’s no shame in that.
Cuz I might be the one here today — but tomorrow,
You’re gonna be the one who’s up to bat.Makes me wonder if he still saw himself as a guest…
Lacking a voice has a tragic, corrosive effect on the willingness and ability of an individual to engage — whether it’s engaging with your family and telling them a story of how a cop pointed a gun at you and demanded a bribe or engaging with friends and telling them that someone yelled at you on the subway to “Go back to where you came from.”
Think of the last time you heard someone yell, “Go back to where you belong!” and saw an immigrant shrug it off. And if you asked them, especially older immigrants, they’ll say that it’s simply “part of it.” They are not here to fight these battles but to work hard and make sure that their children have the opportunities they never had. Nod and walk away — there’s no shame in that.
Resilience and inner strength
Through the lyrics of “Narrate at Last,” I wanted to communicate a story of resilience and inner strength and its impact cross-generationally. No matter your background, when you read these lyrics, I want your mind to engage, grapple, empathize and associate itself with its message — to feel resistance, pride, anger, community, and a compulsion to share your own story.
I wanna —
hear about my grandparents — great grandparents, your great grandparents.
Their stories and traditions,
Struggles, wins, journeys,
How I — came into existence
I rarely talk about myself primarily through my ethnic identity — and generally dodge questions like, “But which are you more, Asian or White?” However, that doesn’t mean that my grandparents’ and parents’ stories don’t profoundly affect the way I understand myself and how I want to contribute to the world.
Though it’s my grandfather’s story to tell, with all that’s happening, I wanted to share it in order to encourage families and friends to tell stories to one another, whether it’s within the confines of their own home or through a creative medium like a song to give their stories to the world.
Narrate at Last
[Verse 1]
She saw the lights in his eyes
Wondering if he could write,
Read — understand what she means
A bribe — a bead drew on him
In a country — foreign — at 1 in the morning
Chinese — is what she reported in.And if this was recorded in
A phone this year,
I’d still — fear — for him — easy target
Won’t get talk back — what a mindset
For a cop that
Probably thought that
He wouldn’t even ask — why he was stopped and
Give her cash cuz she was strapped and
In her mind —He didn’t belong
Who’d stand up for him?
A country where you pay extra if you’re foreign.
Ironic — America — built by slaves and immigrants,
Karen in character — villains crying heritage!Look at the bigger picture
Take your finger off the trigger
Racists go ahead and run with scissors,
Cuz it says that in the scripture
Those triggered
By sharing the vineyard
Shall — drown in wine —
Cuz God shall protect yours
As he does mine.And as we climb
To the city — upon a hill,
I spot Jack and Jill —
Jan 6 — drunk, man — they had their fill
Bombs in the trunk
And they were — Ready to kill.So I don’t have any pity left to feel for ‘em,
It’s our city too — deal with it,
I doubt you’d — breathe for him.
So many names on this ledger — shameful,
This isn’t the America my grandfather
Thought he came to —Painful
Memories,
But for a better life
He — Smiled, nodded walked away,
Put down his pride
Willingly.
No matter the fight picked with him
It’s chilling — how he
Could be — dry eyed — after a lifetime of this system —Cuz I’d have
Eyes of — rage — for being wronged,
Treated with disrespect
Told that you — don’t belong,
We won’t let in your children,
Your wife, your father your mom
We don’t want none of you here
We’ll try and break you
Because we
Hate that you’re strongWe hate that you’re strong,
We don’t want none of you here
Use the courts the laws the rope the gun the fear,
We’ll try to break you
Cuz we hate that you’re strong.[Chorus]
This is our home.
To all the lives who came before
This is our home
For all the hardship they endured
Use it as your stepping stones
Our stepping stones
Use it as your stepping stones
Our stepping stones
— Don’t do it alone.[Verse 2]
I heard this story through my mom,
A year or two after he was gone.
What’s crazy is that — he’d say we’re blessed,
To be in this country
Our family — our children, grandkids — to have success.For that — you put up with the rest,
Don’t complain —
Nod and walk away, man — there’s no shame in that.
Cuz I might be the one here today — but tomorrow,
You’re gunna be the one who’s up to bat.Makes me wonder if he still saw himself as a guest,
God I’m blessed.
But so many before — and so many now —
Are still oppressed.You know — Being voiceless isn’t always a choice,
Language can uplift or it repress.And storytelling is a tool that Asians can’t forget to use — there’s truth to that.
Just cuz you’re a model minority —
Doesn’t mean you don’t have your own cherry tree —
So don’t stay silent or talk last.I wanna —
hear about my grandparents — great grandparents, your great grandparents.
Their stories and traditions,
Struggles, wins, journeys,
How I — came into existence
Channeling these,
There’s
Power in that.So I guess my ask — is to you to — tell stories
About the present through the past.
That’s how we — join with our American brothers and sisters
As we march past race and class.Artists,
Writers painters dancers parents and singers,
Tell stories that resonate — whether they be
About your grandfather — or an Alabama preacher — or
About the American dream and what we all dream for,
It’s about time that we all —Narrate at last.
