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

by Jimmy O. Yang

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. I had to disappoint them in order to pursue what I loved. That was the only way to have my Chinese turnip cake and eat an American apple pie too.

Asian parents proud. Being an artist in China is the peasant work of a lowly clown.

The grass is always greener and the college diplomas are always shinier from a different country. Even though Hong Kong is one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the world, it just doesn’t seem to have the same opportunities America has. You can make it big as a banker, a real estate developer and a doctor in Hong Kong, but you can literally be an astronaut, a rock star or anything you want in America. We moved here believing in the American dream.

How is the authentic version so much shittier than the foreign version? I felt betrayed.

We didn’t have corporate gyms in Hong Kong; everyone was skinny.

Nobody had booties like that in Hong Kong.

It was like a whole new language to me. I had no concept of the credit system in America, let alone the stereotype of black people having bad credit; I didn’t understand why white people were always doing crazy things, like skydiving and hiking, that black people would never do; and I didn’t understand what it meant when a comedian said, “Mama trippin’.” Did his mom trip and fall over on the floor?

So I watched BET Comicview religiously for three years. And I learned about this country from the realest American educators: comedians.

But I wanted to be a gangsta-ass rapper, so I rapped about sex, drugs and gangbanging. In reality, I was a virgin who had a seven o’clock curfew.

“Don’t do that again, or we’ll send you back to where you came from.”

All the Pledge of Allegiances, American football and BET Rap City didn’t change anything; I was still just a foreigner living in America. And worst of all, this came from an Asian American person. I was angry. I was angry that an Asian brother sold me out. I was angry that he thought he was better than me. I was angry that no matter how hard I tried, I was still a foreigner. I couldn’t come up with a response that wouldn’t send me to prison. I just took the comment and silently walked out. I was still nothing more than an immigrant who could be deported at any time.

The study-abroad trip was such an amazing experience; it raised the bar for my standard of living. It made me not ever want to go back to my inadequate life back home. I felt a purposeful depression. I wasn’t sad; I was unsatisfied. I wanted more out of life. I needed to step my life up.

could hear my dad saying, “Doing what you love is how you become homeless.” Finding a passion seemed as unrealistic as the Yellow Panthers winning a Grammy. Mike’s commencement speech gave me the permission that my parents never gave me; it gave me the permission to quit what others thought I should do and find something I was truly passionate about. I wanted to find the thing that made me tick.

started to hate everything about the internship, and I couldn’t wait until my three-month sentence was over. I hated mutual funds, I hated CNBC and I hated Hercules.

I’d never seen him so excited. I’m sure this was one of the happiest moments of his life, but in contrast, this was one of the most dismal moments of my life.

I was twenty-one years old when I did my first open mic.

I got a boner. This rare physical contact with the opposite sex was more action than I’d gotten in a year.

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.

Stand-up comedy is one of the only places where all the outsiders truly fit in. It is like a secret society for the disenfranchised. It’s the only place where the weirder you are, the more interesting you become. Stand-up comedy was one of the only places I felt like I truly belonged.

And here I am, writing that book. I’d never met anyone who had such a high-caliber creative motor within a clever business mind. I hung on to everything Sean said. He became my mentor and my comedy godfather.

Lori once asked Sean, “Can we just adopt Jimmy?” And Sean said, “I’m pretty sure Jimmy has real parents. And he’s way past his prime adoption age.”

The Comedy Palace became my new hangout. It became my fraternity that I never had at UCSD.

Stand-up comedy was my first experience with the real world after being institutionalized in school my entire life.

soon realized my sixty-dollar weekly paycheck wasn’t paying the bills. I was living way below the poverty line, even for a comedian.

My dad was right all along: “Pursuing your dreams is for losers. Doing what you love is how you become homeless.”

I’ve seen comedians trade money, weed and sexual favors for stage time. If stand-up is your addiction, stage time is your crack. During my first two years of stand-up, I did seven to ten sets a week and I didn’t get paid for a single one of those early sets.

The Arsenio Hall Show was abruptly canceled. CBS had originally signed on for a second season before I went on the show, but they decided to pull the plug on it three days after I went on. Coincidence? Probably. Or maybe this hot Asian chick was too hot for America. Either way, I felt lucky that someone dropped out so I became the very last stand-up comedian to ever perform on The Arsenio Hall Show, joining the likes of Eddie Murphy, George Lopez and Andrew “Dice” Clay. On my following birthday, Jeremy gave me a custom-made poster that said: YOU GOT ARSENIO CANCELED.

Different girls look better in different lights. For instance, I learned that black girls always look better in green light. Not trying to start some new racial stereotype. It’s just a fact. Try it sometime.

them, I soon realized none of them really wanted to be where they were in life; they just fell into it because of a tough upbringing, drugs or alcohol.

But the mistakes they made in the past haunted them and would always follow them around. It wasn’t “cool” for them to work at a strip club; it was the absolute last resort. And the same could be said about the strippers.

I guess nice guys do always finish last, especially in a strip club.

I didn’t even think being friend-zoned by strippers was possible, but I made it happen.

Time stopped and my brain cranked into hyperfocus. I knew this was one of those life-changing crossroads. People always say your life comes down to a few key decisions that define you; this was clearly one of them.

At least now I can tell people I gave up a life of crime to become a noble comedian.

again. I’d rather try to survive on my own with the two thousand dollars I had in my college checking account.

Sixty grand?! If I can just book one commercial a year, I’ll be rich! Sixty grand sounded like a million dollars to this retired strip club DJ.

if I collected three union vouchers for being an extra, then I’d be eligible to become a member of the Screen Actors Guild, the SAG union.

Little did I know that there were 160,000 members in SAG and 95 percent of them were unemployed on any given day.

Time to call it quits and move back to my dad’s. It was stupid of me to think that I could make it as anything in Hollywood; I was obviously destined to be a quiet financial adviser like the nice Asian boy my dad wanted me to be.

The next morning, I had another agency appointment from LACasting.com.

I just drove four hours for a fifty-dollar gig in a barn and I think I’m too good to meet with an agent?

Vesta Talent was a one-woman boutique agency and she used to be an actress from Julliard.

The role was Haley’s new friend from school who was a weed dealer.

It was the legendary Jeff Greenberg. He was responsible for casting such mega hits as Cheers, Wings and Frasier, and now he was ready to discover the next Bruce Lee.

I looked at him like a puppy begging for a treat. I was eager for a compliment, which was the desperate actor’s ultimate treat.

I still can’t watch Modern Family to this day; it’s like a Vietnam War veteran eating at a pho restaurant.

Two months of acting classes and ten auditions later, I still hadn’t come close to booking a job.

Then I let out all my pent-up frustration from Central Casting, the apartment rental agency and Modern Family in those two lines on the sides. “Hey, come on! Hurry up! I’ll buy it for you!” Those would eventually become my first lines on TV.

felt like I had won the lottery. I called all my friends to brag about the news, and I’m sure I posted some cheesy humble brag post on Facebook. “Finally, after all the sweat and tears, I’ve booked a role on TV! If you believe in yourself, you can too! But for now, everybody look at me while I humble brag on social media!”