The pigtails on my seven-year-old head bounced rhythmically as I ran into the nook. While catching my breath, I excitedly announced, “Ma ma? Ba ba? Wo jue ding le! Wo bu yao jiang guo yuu le. (Mom? Dad? I've decided! I don't want to speak Mandarin anymore.) I'm going to speak English only. Well, starting now.”

The Chinese adults all looked at me from the dinner table. My ma, ba, ah-yi (aunt), and yi-diung (uncle), had been sitting around snacking on dried watermelon seeds when I made my unexpected announcement. I don't remember what kind of expressions they had. Looking back, I can only imagine what my parents thought of their oldest daughter, at seven, denouncing their native language. At the time, however, I was much too excited to notice how they felt.

Inspired by my childhood friend, who was Chinese but spoke great English, I had decided that I too could speak English well. I would forget Chinese and learn to speak English. Chinese did not seem to have any benefit to me. They spoke English at school. Everyone speaks English in America, so I had no need for Chinese. This decision gave me hope in a country that I was striving to survive in.

Although I was born in Santa Barbara, California, my parents, recent immigrants from Taiwan, raised me speaking Mandarin, a dialect of Chinese. My Chinese-speaking capabilities were impressive. By age two I was forming fluid sentences, all in perfect Chinese. My parents took me to a Chinese church and surrounded me with Mandarin speaking relatives, so I never felt out of place with my Chinese, until I went to school.

School was a very scary place. It was like a new world. The children all spoke English without accents and dressed very nicely. I immediately felt out of place with my broken English and my pants with sewn patches over the holes. I was too young to understand why I felt different. I only understood that I felt like I knew less and was less than my classmates. I felt so different I ended up eating lunch either with the only other Chinese girl in my grade, or by myself. I eventually began to dread lunch and recess because those would be the loneliest times of the day.

I remember my ma ma talking with my first grade teacher about my social problems. “Hi, Mrs. Strickly?” She spoke slowly and carefully, “I'm Wendy's mom. Is Wendy okay at school? I think she doesn't have many friends.”

“Well,” Mrs. Strickly shrugged, tired of the conversation, “Maybe Wendy should try playing with other kids.” I wanted to cry. It's not that easy, I screamed silently, I'm scared of the other kids. They all seemed so capable, so self-confident. My fear of rejection prevented me from ever asking to join their games. If I ever felt lonely enough, I would seek out the only other Chinese girl at Kellogg Elementary. I thought worms were disgusting, but I would still pei her to play with worms in the muddy puddles. (Pei is the Chinese verb for to accompany, to go along with.) Ironically, that was the only place I felt safe, accepted.

One can imagine how empowered I felt when I discovered that I had a chance to leave the muddy puddles and play tag with all the other children. I simply needed to improve my English. I dreamed of the day when I would come to school with perfect English. The other children would notice my great English-speaking skills and accept me with open arms. With a little hard work, I could be normal. I thought I had nothing to lose. I knew I had to stop speaking Mandarin, but to a lonely seven-year-old, it seemed like a small price to pay for friends.

By the time I was seventeen, I had what my seven-year-old counterpart had hoped for. I spoke English well, got A's on my English papers, and had many friends, of various ethnicities. School was no longer a scary place for me. I looked forward to hanging out with people during lunch, going to Associated Student Body meetings, and just being a part of the life at Leland High School, which was in San Jose, California, and much more diverse than Kellogg. I got an A+ for Assimilation.

My home life was another story. Ever since I decided to abandon my language, I stopped feeling close to my dad and my mom. As what usually happens when children detach themselves from their cultures, I also became detached from my parents. I had begun to look down on the culture that my parents had grown up with. The more I found out about their culture, the more sorry for them I felt. Oh, how sad, I thought, that my parents couldn't have been raised in America. Maybe then they would have more confidence; maybe then they would have better manners. This prideful disrespect was the foundation for a wall between my parents and me. We could talk about necessary matters, like buying me sheets for college, but never the small, personal details of life that are supposed to be a joy to share with loved ones.

As I entered college at UC Berkeley I began to realize that the decision I had once considered so empowering, had actually disempowered me in so many ways. In my quest for perfect English, I had lost my ability to communicate with my parents, grandparents, and many other relatives. Starting that day, I also had embarked on my journey of self-hate, hating my culture and what that made me. In order to regain a bit of what was lost, I took Chinese 5, Beginning Chinese for Native Speakers, which was for students who used to be able to speak but did not realize the value of their skill until too late. It felt good to learn Chinese, to be excited about speaking my own language. Little did I know that this was the beginning of the journey of healing that God wanted to take me on.

In the winter of sophomore year, only a couple months prior to the conception of this essay, I went to a conference in Urbana, Illinois, appropriately titled, “Urbana”. At this conference, they made a point of embracing cultures from many different nations. We sang songs in Tswana (South African language), Spanish, Haitian Creole, and other languages. I wouldn't have made the slightest noise if we went through the entire conference not playing a Chinese song. I could be perfectly happy singing songs from other cultures. They don't need to make Chinese people feel affirmed, I thought, there are too many us anyway. Being at a campus that seemed overpopulated with Chinese, I had learned to apologize for my race. Whether there were not enough or too many Chinese, I never embraced my ethnicity, until night two of the conference.

On the second night, the worship team's talented violinist made a surprising announcement. What was surprising was not what she said, but what language she said it in. “Da jia hao!!” (Hi! Everybody!) My ears perked up as I heard her speak in immaculate Mandarin. I was surprised and a little pleased to know that they cared enough about my Chinese folk to have the violinist lead a song in Chinese.

The Chinese violinist explained the pronunciations for the song, standard Urbana procedure for teaching a new song in a new language. The audience fumbled with the words, but I didn't mind at all. As the whole group of people, all 19,000 of them, began to sing a worship song in my language I felt tears roll down my face. My heart was softening. I saw that this beautiful song, this song that was pleasing to God, was symbolic of my people, whom were also pleasing to God. I felt in my heart God saying that He loves my people, and He always has. He loved us enough to send His gospel to us, that my parents might find Him, and introduce me to Him. How beautiful that was. God loved my people, just as we were; we didn't have to change or become like any other culture. That night I cried, but I had never felt better about my ethnicity in my life. I cried out all the self-hate I had, all the disdain I had for my culture. God loved my family, and by golly I would too.

In one night, God had finally brought me over the hump; healed me by showing me how much He loved who I was. I didn't have to be non-Chinese for Him to love me. He made no mistake in making me Chinese-American and He loved wo (me). That night, without a doubt was one of the most empowering nights of my life. God had enabled me to love myself and to love my family.

This story was taken from a book called American History X, authored by Wendy Hu, now Wendy Hu-Au, who is from Santa Barbara, California, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in mass communications. She is now working in electronic publishing, as well as interning for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

As I was growing up I was very idealistic. I searched for idealism. This is why the “love and peace” movement in the 1960's interested me. It all sounded so good: perfect peace and perfect love. I began to work with a semi-radical group who has an organization in the inner city to help young people with their drug problems and to supply them with information about he latest rock concerts, etc. I also began to attend many rock concerts myself and associated with some “radical” people. The more I went to the rock concerts, associating and participating in the organization, and the more I heard the words, “love and peace” preached, the more I saw that there was no reality to what they were saying and doing. This is when I really began to seek for the meaning behind the words, “love and peace.”

I began to read the Bible and to meet with some Christians. Through the Bible I saw that Christ was the reality and answer to the “love and peace” that I was seeking. I finally found out that there was real love and peace to be found in this world, and that love and peace was found in Jesus Christ.

When I read the Bible, and Christ spoke of love and peace, I could see that His words were not empty and vain like all the other words I had heard. Christ said, “If a man comes to you and asks you for your coat, give him your shirt, too.” These words were an attractive and high standard to me. And the peace Christ spoke of was a peace with the Lord and having forgiveness of all the sins I had ever committed. Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the reality and the life.” All the reality behind the words “love and peace” which I longed to experience were summed up in one person, Jesus Christ. L.S.