I Am Asia-America

I love hearing other people's "children-of-immigrants" stories. Although or stories are different, there is so much commonality in our experiences...the cultural tightrope walking, the desire to assimilate- followed by the need to cling to our native history, the inevitable miscommunication that occurs between our parents and ourselves.

We have all gone "searching for a city that would be home"...a place to belong to, without shame or obligation. Through beautiful prose, Alvin Lau captures all of this emotion in his poem Asia-America, Where Have You Gone?

Enjoy the video below and check out his bio under that.


Asia-America, Where Have You Gone?
BY Alvin Lau

My mandarin fell from my mouth and it drowned inside this poem
I can't find it in my broken Chinese or my father's dusty notebook
So Asia America, you need to call me
Let me know where you've been hiding
I've torn apart too many paper cranes
Trying to find you in their wings
And I have gone searching
I've scoured every inch of every city
Looking for the hints and trails and clues
The black ink
The passports
The photographs
Whatever would lead me back to you
I've followed the smell of cooking rice and fish
Searching for a city that would be home to me
But all I've found is MSG impostors and gold Buddha statues waving greedily...

ps...I found his bio on the Asian Rap Worldwide blog. This dude has been a staple in the slam poetry scene for at least a decade, so I'm pretty disappointed in myself for just now discovering him. Well, better late than never:-)

Alvin Lau is a spoken word poet from Chicago, Illinois. He is of Chinese ancestry and the son of immigrant parents. He has placed 7th place at the Individual World Poetry Slam and 6th place at the National Poetry Slam when he was 20 years old. He is also Amnesty International's "Poet of Conscience". He is very active in the poetry slam scene and also an activist for social justice.