This is for my people,

with almond eyes and tiger tongues.

For my people,

hovering at the border between east and west

feet dipped in both sides of the swimming pool.

This is for my people,

who never viewed the world through a lense of black or white

but willingly embraced its vivid colors and vibrant hues.

yes, I wear red, white, and blue

but I wear red, white, and blue

embroidered with jade silk

accented with ink from my mother’s calligraphy

colored by the sound of my grandfather’s laughter

drifting through the walls at 2 a.m. in the morning

and I am a character of my own creation.

This is for my people,

who are engineers, doctors, lawyers,

but also artists, athletes, scholars.

thinkers, doers, and above all, dreamers.

For my people,

no longer a pejorative

no longer the underdeveloped characters in our own narrative.

For my people,

who proudly put the Asian in Asian-American

but are never confined by the hyphen in between.