random
What Are You?
by Joanne Nobuko Miyamoto
when I was young
kids used to ask me
what are you?
I'd tell them what my mom told me
I'm an American
chin, chin, Chinaman
you're a Jap!
flashing hot inside
I'd go home
my mom would say
don't worry
he who walks alone
walks faster
people kept asking me
what are you?
and I would always answer
I'm an American
they'd say
no, what nationality
I'm an American!
that's where I was born
flashing hot inside
and when I'd tell them what they wanted
to know
Japanese
…Oh, I've been to Japan
I'd get it over with
they could catalogue and file me
pigeon hole me
so they'd know just how
to think of me
priding themselves
they could guess the difference
between Japanese and Chinese
they had me wishing
I was American
just like them
they had me wishing I was what I'd
been seeing in movies and on TV
on billboards and in magazines
and I tried
while they were making laws in California
against us owning land
we were trying to be american
and laws against us intermarrying with white people
we were trying to be american
our people volunteered to fight against
their own country
trying to be american
when they dropped the atom bomb
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
we were still trying
finally we made it
most of our parents
fiercely dedicated to give us
a good education
to give us everything they never had
we made it
now they use us as an example
to the blacks and browns
how we made it
how we overcame
but there was always
someone asking me
who are you?
Now I answer
I'm an Asian
and they say
why do you separate yourselves
now I say
I'm Japanese
and they say
don't you know this is the greatest country
in the world
Now I say in america
I'm part of the third world people
and they say
if you don't like it here
why don't you go back.
