"Riding into California" If you come to a land with no ancestors to bless you, you have to be your own ancestor. The veterans in the mobile home park don't want to be there. It isn't easy. Oil rigs litter the land like giant frozen birds. Ghosts welcome us to a new life, and an immigrant without home ghosts cannot believe the land is real. So you're grateful for familiarity, and Bruce Lee becomes your hero. Coming into Fullerton, everyone waiting at the station is white. The good thing about being Chinese on Amtrak is no one sits next to you. The bad thing is you sit alone all the way to Irvine.