projectpsa

[projectpsa]

Stan Lee

“I’m a senior citizen, Chinese American, who was born in Greenville, Missisippi back in 1939 with immigrant parents from China and I grew up my whole adolescent life there. That part of my life was very instrumental in developing who I became as a person and in the 1940s and 50s that I grew up there, it was a rough time for nonwhites to grow up in Missisippi. It was very segregated and if you weren’t white, you were considered second-class citizens. Of course, African Americans received the brunt of the mistreatment, but Chinese were caught in the middle of there. There was a sizeable population of Chinese in Mississippi during that time. I lived in a larger city, close to about 20,000 people at the time, we had about close to 50 Chinese families there and we all owned grocery stores. We were scattered all over what they called the Mississippi Delta, which includes Arkansas and Louisiana.“

A lot of the small towns, since there were maybe only one or two Chinese families usually went to school with the Whites, but in the bigger cities, Greenville especially, the didn’t want Chinese going to schools. So in Greenville, they ended up building a separate school for Chinese. We had a one-room schoolhouse that housed all grades and about 40-50 students. We had one teacher who taught all the grades and I went there for three years. Then, they finally allowed Chinese to go to White schools after the power of community petitions and the School Board that we weren’t getting a proper education. We were then allowed into White schools on what they called a “trial basis” and it turned out that most Chinese people did well in school because we had a lot of pressure on us. Our parents told us not to make waves...and that’s how it was. We were under a lot of scrutiny to behave and be under their thumb.

They were doing us a favor they thought, by letting us attend their schools. So we couldn’t make any trouble or they’d kick us out again. It felt abusive to me, that we were still being manipulated. It was the same way in where we lived. We couldn’t live in the White sections of the city, we lived behind the grocery store in the African-American parts of the city. The churches were also manipulative because they saw it as a good chance to ‘save our yellow souls’. All this time we were being manipulated and put into society on their terms, not ours. They were just integrating us into how they wanted us to be and good, subservient people and not threaten their community by our ‘otherness’. It was a rough time to grow up.

I never was comfortable there. Even though I was the smartest kid in the class, I was always made to feel less than. That don’t mean a thing, you’re still just a Chinaman. So growing up in the city was a bad experience for me. I was very unhappy the whole time. There was support in the community and I was happy with my peers, but I knew I had to get away from there. I knew I couldn’t live my life there and I knew a lot of Chinese people felt the same way. Our parents’ goals were to get us to college and get out of there. And for the most part, that’s what we did. I know there’s still a sizable population of Chinese and Asian people there, but not what it used to be. When my generation grew up and finished college, most families left. I went to school far way and discovered a new world. People didn’t care that I looked different and didn’t point me out. It opened a new world and I felt like amybe I could exist in the world I get, but being subjected to the life in the city really took its toll on me. Even though I could be free, I was aware that I was different that ‘mainstream America’ and that stayed with me my whole life and I just didn’t know what to do with my identity.

I decided there was no advantage in being Chinese and I sort of gave up being Chinese. We quit speaking Chinese, even though that was certainly our first language. I sort of abandoned the Chinese community and I didn’t want to have anything to do with them. All the community was doing was pointing out that we were different. In the end, branding us as a model minority because we were acting so good and using us to throw it at the Black population...”

I just ran away from my identity and didn’t know who I was.

I always felt different. I spent most of my life running away from my identity. I realized I could be a whole person and exist in society but the one thing I couldn’t get over was about my Chinese identity. Maybe I could’ve just let it go, but it became important to realize who I was as a Chinese person. I had the opportunity to go to China and after retirement, I went with my church group to teach oral English skills to native English teachers in China. It was a 30 day assignment and I needed to go and see if I could find out something about being Chinese. It turned out to be a momentous decision in my life and I was able to go and be received by 60 Chinese teachers. I didn’t know how to be accepted, I looked like them, but I couldn’t speak Chinese anymore. It turned out that they accepted me totally and they would help me realize my Chinese heritage. They told me by accepting me, that I am Chinese.