But most would have solved the problem by clinging only to their old ways and language and pretending that they were on a little island that was supposed to be a part of China. Or, as so many other American families have done, they could have thrown off their ancestral heritage and severed their roots to the past-a simple enough thing for my mother and her brother and sisters since the white children of the town quickly came to accept the laundryman's children on an equal basis.
"However, my mother's family solution was to juggle elements of both cultures. Though they stayed Chinese in some central core, they also developed a curiosity and open-mindedness about the larger white culture around them."1
"[I,] having been raised in a Black ghetto and having commuted to a bilingual school in Chinatown, ... did not confront White American culture until high school. Approaching as something of a stranger, I have been fascinated by all its aspects-- from its great novels to its children's literature, comic art, and science fiction, specifically pursuing the figure of the 'stranger' both in my studies and my writing."2
After graduating from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Yep received his Ph.D.
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