Karaoke was my family's happy secret. In those early years in America, like many immigrants, my parents struggled with poverty and loneliness, but they also built provisional families, and inside our bubble there was joy, understanding, an intimate language I… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
Faced with ostracization at school and confinement at home, I turned to karaoke. — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I grew up in a Chinese American enclave where the person who lived down the street had literally lived down the street from my… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I think it was really important for me before I 'debuted myself' in front of the world to have a private life with my… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
When it comes to love, maturity often gets a bad rap - second love is boring; it's practical. It's what our parents feel for… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I seem to be drawn to these smaller forms, and I seem to be drawn to things that can be written and also read… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
Asian American success is often presented as something of a horror - robotic, unfeeling machines psychotically hellbent on excelling, products of abusive tiger parenting… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
When I was writing stories about Chinese American characters in my fiction classes, I'd get comments like, 'You should consider writing more universal stories.'… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
We lived in one of those half-basement apartments, and on our first night of being in America, someone reached through the grate that protects… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
That's what people expect: They don't want to read a slight novel. People don't want to waste their time on anything less than 'great.' — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
My privileged upbringing and education and linguistic fluency gave me such proximity to whiteness that it stung all the more to still find myself… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I still catch myself trying to become the object someone imagines me to be, but then there are other times, when I am free,… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
How do we form a coalition of resistance without obliterating our differences? Not all lives matter, and we are not all the same immigrants. — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
It's like a weird mindset to wake up and want to be wanted. Like, I want to be wanted so much already... and I'm… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
Does self-acceptance ultimately require another person, or is there a kind of love that does not dabble in the dream of a perfect twinship? — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
It's okay if someone is disgusted or offended by my performance. It's just a performance. — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
