IN “All You Can Ever Know” (Catapult, 2018), author Nicole Chung, formerly a bullied Seattle Korean-American adoptee living in Caucasian rural Oregon, wrote:
“One spring when I was ten years old, my parents took me back to Seattle. … my favorite outing of the week was to the Chinatown – International District and Uwajimaya… what truly enthralled me were the people: never before had I been entirely surrounded by Asians. …
“At home I kept a secret running tally of every single Asian person I had ever seen in public. … The people who owned the Chinese restaurant. … The couple who were always behind the counter at the Donut Den. It was possible to go months, even years without seeing any who were new to me. … Here, finally, I was inconspicuous. … It was novel, exhilarating. …
“I quickly found another secret game to play. … Every time we passed an Asian woman around my mother’s age, I could not help but wonder if she might be my mother. …
“It seemed impossible that we would be able to cross paths like strangers and keep moving down the sidewalk away from each other, never to know, never to meet again. …
“Somewhere out there was the life I was meant for, a life I might find in time. It never seemed more possible than it did during the week I spent circling unfamiliar city streets crowded with other Asian Americans, my eyes drawn over and over to the faces of strangers as I looked for my people, for my parents, for a sudden light of recognition that never came.”
