Questions to Grow Up On
by Ashley Deng
Edited by Julia Rios
Copyedited by Chelle Parker
September 2019
you call yourself caribbean?
your skin’s too light, your name
too asian
you did not know the island life
you do not know our lands
what do you share with us, of the pains
of our ancestors
of the slavery that built our island
you know our food but not our culture
not our language
how can you talk of the islands when
you were born in the land
of ice and snow
your skin’s too light, your name
too asian
you did not know the island life
you do not know our lands
what do you share with us, of the pains
of our ancestors
of the slavery that built our island
you know our food but not our culture
not our language
how can you talk of the islands when
you were born in the land
of ice and snow
what asian are you?
can you call yourself chinese
when your tongue has forgotten the
language of your ancestors, faded
into the barest of phrases in
a dialect spoken only in a
tiny village unchanged
for centuries
until the world came to it
and stepped on its grounds
tore down the old homes
and built the same suburban house
like any other colonial house
can you call yourself chinese
when your tongue has forgotten the
language of your ancestors, faded
into the barest of phrases in
a dialect spoken only in a
tiny village unchanged
for centuries
until the world came to it
and stepped on its grounds
tore down the old homes
and built the same suburban house
like any other colonial house
that’s all you know
that’s all you’ve ever known
that’s all you’ve ever known
your black blood got lost so long ago
that you only look Less Pure and
unrecognizable to your chinese brethren
that you only look Less Pure and
unrecognizable to your chinese brethren
the tongues of your ancestors squashed by
the standard chinese that’s
foreign to you, unrecognizable
the standard chinese that’s
foreign to you, unrecognizable
you abandoned the name
that marks your island heritage
that marks your island heritage
you chose a name in that tongue
not spoken by your people
not spoken by your people
to be accepted into a group
that sees you as an other
how do you reclaim a name you never used?
memorized like lines of a drawing
in unpracticed scrawl
and an untrained tongue
memorized like lines of a drawing
in unpracticed scrawl
and an untrained tongue
they call your parents practically white
because their English is good and unaccented
because their English is good and unaccented
but you’re too foreign to be white
too white to be asian
too asian to be black
too white to be asian
too asian to be black
“Are you an Asian? You’re basically white –
can barely pronounce your own goddamn
name.”
can barely pronounce your own goddamn
name.”
“Nah, you can’t be Jamaican. You ain’t
Black.”
Black.”
© 2019 Ashley Deng
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