A favorite story about adapting to life in America:

My wife and I came from China and have been in America for only seven years and we are PR currently. We have a 4-year-old son born here in New York. We've been always thinking about the same topic - what does it mean to become an American? Actually my take on this question can be answered from two perspectives- from our own perspective and from American's perspective. From our pespective, you become American when you pledge the allegience to the flag and meanwhile you appreciate the American values. On the other hand, you will never become American from other American's perspective, because you have different look, language and culture. You can hardly gain the recognition as an American from other people, no matter how much pain you have been through and how much you tried to adapt to the life of America. The happiness and pain we have been experiencing during these years of spiritual and cultural transforming made our life somehow interesting and thinkable. I have no doubt that we'll become American citizen 2 or 3 years later, since this is the very land and Contitution we love. We are raising our family here. But I think my wife and I will never feel so comfortable and confident as the way we felt in China. It's not only because of the skin color, it's also because of the culture and language difference. Most of times, American people are polite to you and would not tell you verbally that you are not American. But some Americans' behaviors will let you feel you are an forever-alien. For example, they will give you substandard service or they don't like to talk to you much in the workplace. But I don't blame these people. I think this is a shared dark side of humankind - subconsciously people don't like other kinds getting too close. I still have confidence on this great country. I believe the situation is going to improve along the time, since the mix of races and cultures takes time. The only conclusion I had so far is that, the first generation of immigrants has to suffer a lot in their life while America gets more culturally versatile and open-minded. You have definitely no way to avoid the pains of being treated as second class citizen. The only thing you can do is to FIGHT against it, by the aid of power of the greatest Constitution in the world.

On feeling truly American:

I'm still not an American from legal point of view. But since I live on this land, enjoy the good this contry offers and pay taxes, I view myself as an American. This feeling became very strong at two occasions.

One time happened when we were back to China visiting my parents. One day on the way back to my parents home after we had visited my friend, my son said to me, "Daddy, let's go home, I'm really tired", and I answered, "Yes, we are going back home", and he said, "This is not my home. I mean my home in America". At that very moment, I realized my family has strong connection now with America; I have an American son, and in a sense, we are all American.

The second time this feeling came upon me was when 911 happened. I have such a strong feeling that I am an American and New Yorker after the tragedy occured. When the city we work and live in was attacked, when the people share the same living place with us were murdered, when the buildings I saw every day perished, we were so hurt and angry and take it so personal. My wife cried so hard in my arms, and our family feel very American at that time.

On feeling not fully American:

One time in a quarrel on the bus a African-American lady said to a Pakistani immigrant, "go back to your own country". I told her it's not right to talk to people like that, and she turned to me and shout, "You too!".

Another time, in the first day at the first company I joined after I finished graduate school. One colleague asked me in our first conversation after we were introduced at lunch time, "why do you come to the US?".

There are many times that we don't feel accepted as American. I believe it happened before, and it'll happen in the future. It's the price we have to pay to make this country even greater.

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