The Accidental Asian

Book Review: Discuss how it felt to be a Chinese adolescent in this story. How did Eric compensate for his feelings of inadequacy? Who were Eric's peers and how did he respond to them as an adolescent?

As a Chinese adolescent, Eric could not handle being in public as a private person. It seemed more complicated than it was when he was a child. He found that he had to conform to being "cool." If he could be cool, he could conform; however, he had to be able to figure out what was cool in advance of it being cool. He was not very good at that. Generally, most things in life prior to being an adolescent came easy to him. He never had warning about the change of phase from being content to having to be social and fit in. He was completely unprepared for this.

Since Eric's looks, loves, and manners were lacking, his education in adolescence was difficult. There was nothing terrible that happened, but it seemed terrible for him. He felt that he was abnormal. He decided that the difficulties of adolescence that he was experiencing were due to his race. He had difficulty figuring out how to bring order to being a Chinese adolescent. Instead of rebelling, he dedicated himself to learning how to be just that to the best of his ability.

Since he was now an adolescent, his hairstyle he had (sported) until he was eleven had to go: it was a bowl cut always given by his mother. It was okay all the way up until he was eleven, and he never had a problem with it. When he turned twelve and was now in 6th grade, he realized that his hairstyle had to go and the bowl cut was not cool for boys of his age. It was very important to him that he made up for his childhood mistakes by trying to be cool as a teenager.

In school, the other kids were white, especially the girls. These were basically the demographics of the school he attended--he was Chinese. He seemed certain that being Chinese was the only obstacle in his way of advancement. He considered himself to be not unattractive, at least compared to some of the other boys who had begun dating girls. He secretly hated the girls he liked. He decided that they were unworthy of him because they were not as smart as he. They also seemed to have a hidden prejudice against him.

Eric took refuge in doing the things he could do best. He played in the orchestra, but also was on the wrestling team. He won prizes in scientific events, but was also the editor of the school paper. He honestly thought he was getting rid of the stereotype of the Asian-American boy as a one-sided "brainiac." Some, possibly, thought of him as just another Asian overachiever.

His peers were his friends and the girls. His friends he seemed to respond to quite well, while the girls he still seemed to have trouble with. In both cases, he always seemed to be on stage. He was always trying to be more accepted by trying to become more "American," but he still had been ridiculed, taunted on the bus, having things thrown at him, and being called names. One of his friends would actually help him at times in those situations and return the favor of the outlanders by shooting spitballs at them and insulting them. It was in the presence of his peers that he began to see that there was a person behind his race. He was beginning to develop an identity as a person, instead of just another Asian American boy. This social progress he was making could only lead to better things to come in his near future.

Situate and explain Eric's life experiences and observations about his family members in the context of Hansen's Law (also called the three-generation hypothesis).

"Hansen's Law assumes that the second generation perceives its ethnicity as a disadvantage in being accepted in U.S. society" (Parrillo: 542). Eric's life experiences and observations about his family members in the context of Hansen's Law began with his supposition "that the second generation forgets to ask the first generation why it became the first" (Liu: 8). Eric never knew that Baba, his father, was born in Nanjing, China until he applied to college and had to fill in that part of his application. He never knew where his father went after learning to drive. He never knew of his ambitions when he crossed the ocean and came to the United States. He never knew if he missed China when he prepared his first meal in this country.