ESL a/s/l?

a WIP multimedia project

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PREFACE

A MEMOIR EXCERPT

Raised in rural Wisconsin by an intermittent cast of overworked immigrant parents, siblings 12 and 14 years my senior, and fill-in caretaker grandparents, I was also home alone for long stretches throughout childhood. In elementary school, I experienced another kind of isolation. Bullied, ostracized, and “othered” by primarily white classmates, I was distinctly different from almost everyone around me. The CHING! CHANG! CHONG! chant was in constant rotation as though it was a Top 10 hit in close competition with Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”

Dad is from Guangzhou and Mom is from Hong Kong, both regions where the Chinese dialect Cantonese is spoken. It was also the first language I learned and what my family spoke at home. I picked up English in kindergarten and have since been fluent. I talk in “Chenglish” now. My parents continue conversations in Cantonese with me whereas my sister, Caroline and I converse through English, and my brother, Ted and I dance between the two. Any instances of dialogue with my mom, dad, and brother have recreated translations from Cantonese/Chenglish to English.

My dad rarely talks and when I tried interviewing him about his family history, he responded with “I’m eating,” in a muffled voice, mouth full of food. My mom dominates conversations and is typically the spokesperson representing my parents and all of the invisible people who allegedly share her beliefs and values when she’s trying to make a point. My dad often stays in the literal and figurative background shaking his head to express disapproval in most situations. If his body language had a voice, it would say “Listen to your mom.”

Over the past decade, I’ve interviewed my parents and siblings in hopes of bridging our stories, our perspectives — my different layers of identity within our family, and Chinese and American cultures together — longing to alleviate the loneliness felt when one is neither here nor there. Some exist as unedited oral history recordings; others as snippets of fleeting conversations.

I simultaneously recall tough and tender moments. The tender cutting through the tough to keep me in check — pulling me back from dismissing different family members; and in some cases, the kids who teased me at school. Loneliness prevails in adult me, but I have more wherewithal to counter it, and I’m more secure in my identity now. Strict and extreme “Asian” parenting mixed with physical and emotional abuse are themes in the unpacking. My sister has largely dropped out of the family; my brother chooses the path of least resistance, playing the role of dutiful Chinese son — no questions asked if he disagrees with our parents (there are many misalignments). I’m the only journalist covering this story, so to speak, investigating and reporting on our family dynamics.

But this isn’t a story about uncovering the whys of my family’s actions and inactions. It’s a story about my loneliness and the severe depression accompanying it as an American-born-Chinese (ABC) female and alternative misfit straddling cultures and subcultures. It’s about eventually finding my people, my voice, my power — recollections of how and why I got online during the early days of the Internet in the ‘90s — and why I stayed logged in. As the loneliness epidemic soars in the current digital landscape, I want to highlight how I first experienced the Internet which was anything but lonely. A May 2024 New York Times article, “The Loneliness Curve,” cites social psychologist Jean Twenge’s research that “heavy social media use is linked to poor mental health — especially among girls — and that smartphone access and Internet use ‘increased in lockstep with teenage loneliness.’ Because I lived a pre-Internet and baby Internet existence, I want to capture this special period in a time capsule. The Internet’s coming of age was also my coming of age.

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MEMOIR EXCERPTS
preface (currently viewing)
LEANING TOWERS
justify my L0v3 <3