Becoming American: The Chinese Experience, reaction paper.
Race is a group of people united or classified together on a basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution. As you continue on reading I"m going to tell you a little about people of the Chinese race and their struggle to become American. Many of these people not better or worse then you or I have had a rough time making some of their dreams come true. They had to fight and struggle with discrimination just because they were "different". .
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Gish Jen is a daughter of immigrant parents. She now is an American citizen but here life wasn't always easy along with her parents. As asked in an interview about her writing, she said she didn't think she would have been a writer today if it weren't for her parents being immigrants. She felt as if she was living in two different worlds. Gish Jen came from a world where everything that was done was an idea that there were obstacles everywhere that someone could not simply go out and do what they wanted. That she had no choice but to be smart and to be "perfect" in everything that she did. She had to have extremely high goals and there was no choice other then to reaching them.
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She told about how a lot of Chinese technical students were held in America against their will. She told about how her father and his students wanted to go back. They wanted to see their families. Gish Jen told a story about her parents. They wanted to go back home to china but the United State Government wouldn't allow them in fear that they would help the communists. Her parents told her that the United State Government cut a deal with Guo Ming Dang to keep the students in America.
Gish Jen grew up in a suburb outside of New York City. Growing up outside of NYC wasn't easy for her and her family. They were the only Chinese family in the area, and it was a tough neighborhood. People threw rocks at them all the time.