Ten Thousand Gates: A Humboldt Celebration of Asian American Artists' Poetry Reading May 4, 2025

​Five Generations

Last night my friend told me about her grandmother
The matriarch of the family
First generation Japanese
She said her grandmother said
When you have five generations
Of your family educated and successful
Then you have reached your goal

My friend's father and mother were put in relocation camps after Pearl Harbor
One in Wyoming, one in Arizona
They didn't talk much about it
Only endured

He became a cardiologist, the first to be invited into an all-white practice
She was an elegant dresser but always looked back to see if they would take her away
again

They say we are the model minority

My Chinese grandfather came to Hawaii on a boat
Age nine, sponsored by his uncle
No English
Worked as a houseboy for Queen Liliu'
In Iolani Palace before the white men took away
Her kingdom

Became a merchant who sold dry goods on King and River Street
In the heart of Chinatown infested with rats and plague
Started the anti-opium league and told his neighbors
Cut off your queues so you can't be tied together

Had a wife who came from Guandong Province, illiterate
With bound feet
Sent all seven children to private schools, one to Yale, a girl to Columbia
Made something out of nothing
Like chop suey
The bits and pieces
Cut small to make things stretch

My other grandmother came with nothing also
Except an older husband and ten children
She told my cousin with disgust in her voice
All men die
She raised those children by selling candy at the movie theater next door..

When they put in the freeway and took her land
She bought an apartment building and became a landlady.
Her children and children's children and those who came after went to college.

My parents said the only thing they can't take away from you is your education
That is the way out of poverty to power
They can burn you out, send you to camp, take your land, call you Chink, Jap,
slant-eye, yellow peril
Your dignity shredded but not your mind

So you put your head down
Study hard
Work hard
Don't complain
Have children
Send them to school
And start again
For the next generation
And the generation after the next

Always looking forward
But with a glance behind
for whoever can take you away again.

Libby Yee
​March 2025