Yellow Woman

Genevieve Lim-Jue

I am the daughter of seafarers, gold miners, quartz miners, railroad miners, farmworkers, garment workers, factory workers, restaurant, workers, laundrymen, houseboys, scholars, poets, dreamers . . .

I have seen my father’s destiny crushed, by the weight of his immigrant dreams silently staring a heap of yellow misery inextricably tangled amongst the sweating, huddled flesh of Utopia.

I have heard my mother’s prayers shaped in tombs of darkness seen the invisible tears trickling down blank cheeks.

Heard old women chanting elegies from the past, beseeching idle gods.

Neighbors’ children mocked their bound feet, knarled hands.

Mother was a pioneer groping in the White Darkness.

They called her China-Woman as she walked quietly alone.

And in the winter of her isolation I was born-Blood of Asia, Flesh of the New World, One-hundred-and-twenty-five-year-old daughter of two worlds Struggling to embrace one.

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http://instruct.westvalley.edu/saito/eng18/2003stu1.html