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

by Jimmy O. Yang

Everything I’d ever worked for materialized in that sentence. Every bad audition flashed in front of me and they liquefied themselves and seeped out of my eyes as I sobbed. The weight of everything my dad expected of me lifted off of my shoulders. I sat there quietly for a moment. Then I gathered myself and screamed in the phone: “FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!” The Chinese family in front of me shielded their kid from me and hustled off of the trolley. I screamed again into the sky: “FUCK YEAH!!!!!!” I knew my life was about to change. I called my dad to share the monumental news. “Dad, Silicon Valley is going to make me a series regular!” “What is that?” “That means I’ll get paid more money, and I’ll be under contract with HBO!” “So you have a job?” “Yeah! As a series reg—” “Good.” He had no idea what series regular meant, but he was satisfied that I finally got a job.