It's impossible to read Ying Ma's fascinating memoir, "Chinese Girl in the Ghetto," without wincing. She was born in Guangzhou, China's third largest city. Throughout her mostly carefree early childhood years, she kept her family's secret: that her parents repeatedly sought permission to emigrate to the United States.The rest of the narrative is fascinating, especially the glimpse Charen gives us of what Ying had to endure when she arrived in the States as a child unable to speak English. Her experience in U.S. public schools reminds me of the story of the Vietnamese family portrayed in the movie Journey from the Fall.
Her family was not poor, at least not by Chinese standards of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Yet her daily life would be considered squalid by first world standards. Her family lived in a two-bedroom apartment. She, her brother and her parents shared one bedroom (and two plank beds). Her paternal grandparents and an uncle shared the other. At times, another uncle slept in the living room. They shared the kitchen and bathroom (such as it was) with the family next door. There was no running hot water, and the toilet was a hole in the floor. The elderly had a particularly hard time crouching.
Ying Ma's childhood was nonetheless relatively carefree. She longed for more possessions and eagerly consumed whatever Western products — like nail polish and candy — her relatives brought from nearby Hong Kong. But she excelled in school, was surrounded by friends, was doted upon by her grandfather and looked forward (here's the wince) to a fantastic new life in America.
As a child, Ying could not comprehend the more menacing aspects of totalitarian rule. Her third grade teacher, for example, announced one day that instead of doing math, "You are all going to spend the hour confessing." When the pupils expressed confusion, teacher Fu explained, "The school knows that each of you, or someone you know, has behaved wrongly....Now start writing."
Ying recalls, "I always believed my teachers. Now I was genuinely worried. Did the school already know I had relatives from Hong Kong who brought me toys and clothing from the world of the capitalist running dogs? Did it know I really, really liked American movies...?"
There are a couple of take-away lessons in Ying Ma's story. One is that the belief, evidently widespread in the minority community, that racism is a sin that only whites are guilty of is risible.
The second, also prevalent among those in the minority community who wish to rationalize their own failure to achieve, is that the reason minorities can't get ahead is because they're so disadvantaged due to poverty and racial discrimination that they simply can't compete with the more fortunate. Ying Ma's accomplishment shows what a cop out this is.
Ying succeeded in the same way anyone can succeed in this country - through hard work, tenacity, good choices, and a determination to rise above her circumstances.
