““As a Chinese American growing up in a largely white world during the 1920s and 1930s, a sense of social marginalization marked her formative years. “Asian Americans were so few and far between,” she recalled, “that from an early age we were raised to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible, in part because so many of us had relatives or knew people who were illegal immigrants.” 3 Indeed, she came of age during the era of exclusion, as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (extended in 1904) remained in force well into her adulthood. It was repealed during World War II as she approached the age of thirty, marking her as a member of the last generation whose childhood and young adulthood unfolded before the Chinese in America saw significant opportunities “to move out from the shadows of exclusion and become fuller participants in American life.” 4 She did not have available during her formative years the concept of “Asian Americans” or of a pan-Asian ethnic identity, which did not emerge until the 1960s. Furthermore, her parents transmitted conflicting attitudes toward Chinese identity. While her father proudly embraced his Chinese heritage and sought to instill an appreciation of it in his children, her mother increasingly identified with the United States and derived fulfillment from seeing herself as more American than Chinese.””
