My older cousin who has two little boys told me she didn’t want girls because there were just so many more frightening variables with girls. I know this is true enough.
This isn’t meant, I’m sure, to marginalize a teenager’s, or even an adolescent’s desire for space and an American ideal of normalcy for each age. Lord knows I know that feeling myself and regularly take pains to ensure I exercise my own in a way that perpetuates more.
The dynamics of an immigrant mother and an American-born daughter though, a Chinese one especially, tends to be fraught with pain and tension amidst a back-drop of genuine care, often obscured by a fighting desire for independence against a just as fierce desire to protect. It’s incredibly frustrating at times to walk that line and to keep everyone, including oneself, happy. For a lot of female children of Asian immigrants, among other immigrants, this will probably hit home. It did for me.
PS: Julie Zhan is so cool, I see her like every where now!
Pomelo girl thoughts 