Asian Heritage essays

Asian Heritage essays In The Accidental Asian by Eric Liu, Liu is faced with the complexity of his heritage. Liu is a second-generation Chinese American. Throughout Lius essays he speaks of the disadvantages of being an Asian American and how in his life he dealt with it. Liu also speaks of his family and their values of keeping their heritage alive without his parents being overbearing and discriminating towards Lius choices in life. In Eric Lius The Accidental Asian, Liu speaks of Chineseness which he says ... is not a mystical, more authentic way of being; its just a decision to act Chinese(pg. 10). It seems in the novel that Liu is not questioning whether he is Chinese or American or one more than another, I feel Liu is while being both Chinese and American he had such a hard time accepting or questioning the Chinese qualities more than the American ones. Liu was what his parents called an ABC, an American-born Chinese(pg.43), Liu had seen himself as a social immigrant when he was younger. Since Liu was a child he was faced with the burden of sometimes feeling left out due to his physical appearance and characteristics being not like others around him. Liu was not ashamed of being Chinese but he wished sometimes that things would be easier for him like the others in his school. When Liu was twelve he realized the bowl cut he was so used to for the past eleven years was now out of style. Liu was now in an era in the 1980s where feathered hair was the way to go and Lius hair was the straight wiry kind that would not be apt to be brushed back with the likelihood of staying. So one day his friend dared him to shave it off and he did Liu felt that he had managed, without losing face, to rid myself of my greatest social burden(pg.42). Liu also had to struggle with the fact that to girls in his school which were mostly all white he was only the funny, cute, sweet friend&...