I\u2019m a 90\u2019s baby but I don\u2019t know 90\u2019s music
\nso if you say anything about Destiny\u2019s Child I\u2019ll just smile and nod.
\nBack then my mom was bumping Cho Yong Pil, and no\u2014
\nyou\u2019re the one who\u2019s missing out.<\/p>\n
I still haven\u2019t been given the sex talk by my immigrant mother
\nand I probably never will. I’m 22.
\nPublic school health ed failed me too.
\nFriends and the Internet came to my rescue.<\/p>\n
Only years after enduring stale cheese sticks
\nand pizza squares in the school cafeteria did I learn to appreciate
\nthe dishes my mom can whip up with the humblest of ingredients\u2014
\nget you some soy sauce, chili powder, and garlic\u2014you\u2019re set\u2014
\nand anything lying around the house becomes
\nyour next orgasm.<\/p>\n
I spent as much time as my mother spent
\nmaking me write and rewrite the English alphabet and
\nspell out all the numbers up to forty
\nand reading books aloud
\ninterpreting for her
\nat the grocery store
\nthe bank
\nthe school
\neven to the police.<\/p>\n
But I always refused to step in
\nwhen the pizza guy couldn\u2019t understand her accented \u201cblack olives\u201d
\nbecause what on earth else
\ncould she be talking about, pizza dude?<\/p>\n
My mom never asked to read my writing
\neven when it was published,
\nand I never asked her to read it.
\nThe unspoken agreement is that it\u2019s the English
\nthat is the barrier,
\nbut I don\u2019t think either of us
\nwant to face the moment when she reads
\nabout herself through my eyes.<\/p>\n
As for me, I had to relearn the language that was
\nmy birthright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m a 90\u2019s baby but I don\u2019t know 90\u2019s music so if you say anything about Destiny\u2019s Child I\u2019ll just smile and nod. Back then my mom was bumping Cho Yong Pil, and no\u2014 you\u2019re the one who\u2019s missing out. I still haven\u2019t been given…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38630"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38648,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38630\/revisions\/38648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}