How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents

by Jimmy O. Yang

He said that this really is the land of opportunity, but most Americans just don’t see it because they’re simply too used to it. They don’t appreciate it and they don’t take advantage of it as much as people who move here from other countries do.

“Pursuing your dreams is for losers. Doing what you love is how you become homeless.”

The most important values in American culture are independence and freedom. The most important values in Chinese culture are family and obedience.

But I figured it was better to disappoint my parents for a few years than to disappoint myself for the rest of my life.

To most foreigners, America has the most prestigious universities and the best job opportunities for college graduates. Ironically, the only people who might disagree with that sentiment are people who actually live in America.

I did something I’d never done in my life. I kicked his ass. I’d never taken any martial arts classes, but there must have been something embedded in my Chinese DNA.

In Hong Kong, we’ve all learned algebra by sixth grade. Aside from English, every subject in the US was at least two years behind compared to Hong Kong.

I grew my hair out down to my shoulders, I started smoking weed and I never went to class: the holy trinity of an underachieving party kid from Arizona State.

People always tell you, “Never give up. Don’t be a quitter.” Those people have never gotten choked by a Brazilian jujitsu black belt.

Instead of looking like a pervert with a BDSM fetish, I immediately tapped out before she could notice my boner. I was TKO’d by my own dick.

When people google “local open mics,” they are one step away from googling “What’s the least painful way to kill myself?” It’s the last frontier before giving up on life.

Almost every comedian I’ve met started doing stand-up after some kind of crisis in his or her life. Sometimes it’s a bad divorce, a bankruptcy or a third DUI arrest. For me, it was getting a boner at jujitsu class.

I bet nobody ever said to Johnny Depp, “We love Pirates of the Caribbean! We thought you were a pirate in real life!”

What I learned was more than the accent itself. I noticed how crudely people treated a foreigner. The mechanic was quickly annoyed because he could barely understand me, the cashier at the grocery store avoided eye contact and the post office lady couldn’t be more frustrated trying to explain the difference between priority and first-class mail to me. This reminded me of my own struggles when I first came to this country. I looked up to Danny as a hero, and I empathized with Danny as a fellow immigrant.

And I want girls to watch these roles and say, “I need to find myself a Jian Yang or Danny Meng. These guys are fucking sexy.” My mission is not to avoid playing an immigrant; my mission is to make Asian immigrants as sexy as Ryan Gosling.

It’s exciting to chase after a new goal, but it’s meaningless if you can’t sit down and enjoy the moment.

Just to be clear: domestic violence is terrible and all perpetrators should be deported to an island where they beat each other in a giant octagon, like a Thunderdome for assholes.

The color of my passport doesn’t matter; most people will always see me as Asian before they’ll think I’m American. It’s hard to put ethnicities aside in the melting pot of America. Sometimes I identify so much with my ethnic background that I forget what I’m really about as a person.

It was the first time in seventeen years that I didn’t have to prove to anyone, or myself, that I was more than the token Asian guy.

Instead of an Asian guy eating weird chicken feet at the stereotypical dim sum, I was just a guy having lunch. I had forgotten that there was a place in this world where I wasn’t judged for my ethnicity, and I was the norm. I felt at peace.

I went from struggling with the English language to doing stand-up comedy and becoming a Hollywood actor. There might always be ignorant people who wish I’d go back to where I came from, but I embrace America the same way it has embraced me as its citizen. My American dream is as real as it comes.

I never looked at these challenges as barriers; I saw them as opportunities to grow. I’d rather try to pursue my dream knowing that I might fail miserably than to have never tried at all. That is How to American.

He replied earnestly, “In a Chinese family we don’t have to say it all the time. You should know that I’m always proud of you.” Deep down, I knew that, it was just nice to hear him say it.

Even though we might never say “I love you” to each other in Chinese culture, there is so much love in these two human beings I truly hit the lottery in life to have them as my parents.

“Having you as my son is like winning the lottery… Not the Mega Millions jackpot, but like a small twenty-dollar prize.”