As Asian-Americans, the charge that is often lobbed against us is sort of the least original: the idea that somehow we're perpetual foreigners, that we can't be trusted, and that even my father, who was patriotic to the point that it was kind of a joke among his children, would be accused of being disloyal to America.
Interpretation
The quote addresses the stereotype of Asian-Americans as perpetual foreigners, highlighting issues of trust and loyalty in their identity.
David Henry Hwang's quote speaks to the experience of Asian-Americans confronting the stereotype of being viewed as outsiders, regardless of their loyalty or contributions to society. He reflects on the painful irony of his father, a deeply patriotic man, being perceived as disloyal simply due to his ethnicity, showcasing the harmful effects of racial assumptions and the struggle for acceptance within a nation that often fails to recognize their belonging.
In practice
In a speech addressing diversity, one might use this quote to highlight the challenges faced by Asian-Americans in seeking recognition.
There was all this talk when Obama got elected about how we were living in a postracial world. But we're not. Until we get to the point where James Earl Jones can play, say, George Washington, race matters. You wouldn't put a white actor in blackface to play Othello. You shouldn't have a white actor in what amounts to yellowface to play Asian.
My first plays were amazingly bad, but I had a teacher who thought I had promise, and he kept working with me. I finally went to a summer workshop before my senior year with people like Sam Shepard and Maria Irene Fornes who encouraged me to write from my subconscious, and suddenly all this material about culture clash came out.
You can't be a playwright without believing there's an audience for adventurous work.
My work has always been controversial within certain segments of the Asian-American community. This is a community that is generally not represented well at all on the stage, in the media, etc. So on those few occasions when something comes along, everybody feels obligated to make sure that it represents his own point of view.
This is the ultimate cruelty, isn't it? That I can talk and talk and to anyone listening, it's only air--too rich a diet to be swallowed by a mundane world.
LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; NY gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. LA is a jungle.
It's a big enough umbrella, but it's always me that ends up getting wet.
As long as I was in Washington I never met anybody that I thought was good enough, who knew enough, or who loved enough to make sexual decisions for anybody else.
Empathy isn’t just listening, it’s asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires knowing you know nothing. Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of context that extends perpetually beyond what you can see.
Even though I have a nice house, nice family, the rest of my generation is still in South Central L.A. My cousins, my brothers, my sisters, they don't wanna move out. They don't want to and they don't have the means to sustain it. That's where my heart is and that's what I think about all the time.
That was part of her, and you used to know it. It's like now you only care about the Alaska you made up.
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