by Anchee Min
The Chinese students dreamed of earning a green card and the permanent residency in the USA that came with it. The competition was about seven hundred applicants for one position. “You have to beat your rivals by skill and qualification,” one Ph.D. student said. “Even if you win, you might still not get the job, if the hiring company doesn’t want to go through the immigration process. Unless the company is desperate, they won’t pay for an immigration lawyer.”
In Mandarin we talked about our “status of beheading.”
Stick out your neck or not stick out your neck—your head would get chopped either way. I’d lose if I failed to achieve a green card, and I would also lose if I returned home with accumulated debt. “You might as well commit suicide.”
It was the first time I heard the words “going underground” and “illegal alien.” The Chinese students called it “the last option.” “If the Mexicans have the guts to risk getting shot crossing the borders, why can’t we?”
The moment our student visas expired, we would be violating US law. No one wanted to end up going underground. It would mean living like a bat in a cave.
“Can you bear not to see your family forever? Can you stand being a ‘permanent missing person’ to your family?” “What if your parents became ill and needed you?”
Although the heater in the room was on, no one took off his or her snow jacket. After a while, a male student pointed to a female student and said, “If I were you, I’d sell myself. I’d marry a grandpa or a dying man for a green card. I would consider that seriously.”
The female student shot back. “You can do that too. You can marry a man and get the same thing.”
Another female student said, “The two of you can marry and give birth to a baby on US soil. Cee-tee-zen! The baby would be legal and he could grow up to save your ass.”
I learned that every one of them was on some sort of scholarship or grant, plus earning money from teaching-assistant positions and work-study plans. Although I didn’t ask the Chinese students to reveal the sources of their scholarships and grants, by the end of the day I understood that it was public information and was available in the university library.
I began my hunt for scholarships and grants. I stayed up all night translating the texts and filling out applications. I also drafted proposals.
My mother wrote to tell me that although my aunt had never mentioned the money I had cost her, it didn’t give me the right to take advantage of her. I wrote back to my mother and told her that I understood and that I was doing my best. It maddened me that I was moving at such a slow pace.
I made a great leap forward in English one day. I experienced my first comprehension of a complete sentence. I owed it to Mr. Rogers’s TV program. He said, “The best gift you can offer is your honest self.”
Upon understanding every word, I broke into tears. What a thrill to feel worthy! It had never occurred to me that my honest self could be a best gift to anyone.
I was in awe of what I was capable of accomplishing. My struggle to translate subsided. The trouble gave itself up. I began to think in English for the first time. My world opened like spring flowers blossoming all at once.
Part Two
{ Chapter 9 }
My TOEFL score didn’t reach 500, but after interviewing me over the telephone, Dr. Barbara Guenther from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago decided to admit me. I rewarded myself with two extra hours of sleep.
I felt like Alice in Wonderland at the orientation day. I had never seen so many strange styles of dress, hair, and makeup. People here seemed to compete for attention starting with their hair. One boy dyed his hair in rainbow colors and piled it up like a hamburger. A girl did hers in bright green in the shape of Mount Everest. A tall man wore his like a rooster’s crown. He was sitting next to a bearded man whose hair was a giant yellow fan. I was shocked by the multitude of rings worn in eyebrows, ears, under the noses, and on the bellies of girls and boys. I wondered why anyone would want to imitate a cow. In China, a cow’s life symbolized misfortune. After working its entire life, a cow was sold or killed for food. Why should such a sad existence fascinate America’s youth?
A group of students sitting on my left dressed in black from head to toe. They wore dyed suits, pants, and skirts and knee-high black boots. Their hair was the color of black ink. Their belts, necklaces, armbands, and wristbands were made of beaten silver with spikes. They used purple eye shadow, which made their eyes look bruised. One girl was in such a skintight outfit that her nipples showed. As I took a closer look, I couldn’t believe what I saw—she was naked. She had painted her entire body with snake patterns. I must admit that she had done an amazing job. No security guards came to take her away.
I tried hard to understand the president’s welcome speech. He said something about how 99 percent of the graduates from this school would not land jobs. He also talked about choices and sacrifices an artist must make. There was still time to change your mind, he told the crowd. But no one stood up or walked away.
I would have stood up and walked away if I could have got any other American college to accept me with my TOEFL score.
I began to look for a way out before I even started to take classes. The immigration law said that I had to stay with the school that issued me the I-20 form to maintain my visa status. With a dictionary in my hand, I visited the school’s job-placement office. I stood in front of the wall where employment ads were posted. Unfortunately, most required English. I applied for a modeling job with the school’s fashion design department. I was directed to the modeling office, where a little old lady received me. After one glance, she said I had the job.
I was thrilled. The job paid seven dollars per hour, more than my monthly salary in China. I moved all my courses to the evenings so I’d be able to apply for more jobs. Soon my schedule was full. I became an attendant for the student gallery and a helper at the admissions office. I stuffed, sealed, and labeled envelopes while counting and recording visitors who strode through the gallery.
I sought cheaper housing. An ad that read “rent negotiable” got my attention. I composed a script for a telephone call. I practiced reading the script until my tongue obeyed me. I dialed. The person on the other end said that she was also a student. We arranged to meet at the school cafeteria.
Her name was Stella and she was eighteen. She had golden hair, light-brown eyes, and a boyish haircut. She was astonishingly beautiful with a touch of masculinity. She took off her ocean-blue velvet coat and revealed her homemade, matched outfit. Her top was in between a blouse and a dress and she wore it with a pair of jeans splattered with brightly colored paint. The pattern of the fabric reminded me of One Thousand and One Nights—Arab themed.
As a sculpture major, Stella worked with metals and found objects. Power saws, hammers, and electric drills were her tools. She described her place as “ideal for artists.” I didn’t interrupt. Rent would be my only concern. I almost walked away when she said that the total rent was $1,000. I let her know that I could not afford $500. “I am from China,” I said.
“China? Red China? Communist China? Cool!” Stella said she would give me a good deal. She’d let me pay whatever I liked. “You don’t have to pay a penny if you really can’t afford it. I’d love to have you as my roommate. All you have to do is share with me your experience growing up in China.” She told me that she was extremely interested in Communism, socialism, and revolutions.
“One hundred dollars per month is my budget,” I said.
“Deal,” she said.
I left a note on Kate’s door saying good-bye and checked out of the dormitory at University of Illinois Circle Campus. Sharing housing with Stella would save two thirds of my expenses. I was glad and relieved. I moved into Stella’s storefront studio unit in Wicker Park. There were no windows and no separate rooms except a tiny makeshift bathroom. There was an old stove by the rear door and an old refrigerator standing next to the stove. There was no kitchen.
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nbsp; The room smelled of animal stink. It was dark inside. The space was cluttered with metal wear, machine parts, auto tires, used fabrics, wood blocks, tools, open paint cans, and wet brushes. On the wall was a large artwork in progress. There were also half-painted canvases and paper drawings. Hanging from the ceiling from a rope was an assembled metal sculpture with a wheel.
As I stared at the sculpture, two ratlike creatures jumped on me from the air.
“Rats!” I screamed.
“They’re not rats!” Stella laughed. “They’re ferrets, my pets. Sweet and friendly weasels.” Stella proudly showed me the home she had built for the ferrets. It was a weblike overhead series of tunnels connecting from ceiling to floor and corner to corner. Stella took me behind her pile of things to a large cage she had built out of wire. She treated the ferrets as if they were her babies. “Touch them,” she encouraged.
Carefully I touched the ferrets. They looked too much like the rats that had frightened me at the labor camp in China. I couldn’t help but associate them with disease and filth. To demonstrate her affection for the ferrets, Stella let them crawl through her clothes, in through her collar and out from her sleeve. “You’ll like them,” she said.
I asked where Stella slept. She pointed at a bare mattress on the floor in the middle of the room under the ferret tunnels. She said she had an extra mattress I could use.
I thanked her. I pulled the mattress over and laid it next to Stella’s. I put down my things and then visited the bathroom. It was difficult to enter. After I squeezed inside, the door wouldn’t close. As I sat on the toilet, I noticed that the sink was full of dirty dishes. A roll of toilet paper hung from the ceiling. Stella explained that it was to prevent the ferrets from tearing up the toilet paper. She warned me not to put food where the ferrets could reach.
In the middle of the night the ferrets came through my blanket. They entered by my feet and came up to my chest. I was horrified. I pulled open my blanket. The two ferrets popped out. They jumped into the tunnel above and disappeared.
Stella laughed and told me that the ferrets didn’t bite. “Stop thinking of them as rats,” she advised.
After dinner I prepared to share with Stella my former life as a Communist. Stella didn’t tell me when I should start. So I waited. Days passed. She was so busy that we barely saw each other. I felt like I was taking advantage of her generosity. One day I decided to bring up the subject. I told her that I was ready whenever she had the time. Stella smiled and said, “That’s okay.”
Did that mean I owed her, or was she no longer interested? Given a choice, I’d never tell my story. The last thing I wanted to do was to relive my experience. I avoided memories. I preferred that they stayed buried. Yet it was in America, alone, that my memories haunted me. They would come to me in my dreams, or while I sat in a classroom or on a subway train. Anything could trigger them: For example, a snowflake made of foam in the Marshall Field’s window display would remind me of the days when the icy earth was too hard to break at the labor camp. A naked mannequin in a clothing store would remind me of the youthful bodies we used to have that were deprived from human contact. A Victoria’s Secret underwear ad would remind me of a flower embroidered by my former camp comrade, a long-dead girl who paid her life for love. When I saw an advertisement with milk ringed around a female mouth, I was reminded of a salt ring on the backs of my comrades as we carried buckets of manure. The white-colored ring was formed by sweat after hundreds of rounds.
Stella wasn’t interested in my former life. I wanted to know if I might ask her a few questions, and she said she would be happy to answer. “What do you think of Mao’s teaching that ‘American imperialism is a paper tiger’?” I asked.
“Who cares!” was her reply.
I was dumbfounded at first, and then awakened. I marveled that not one out of a billion Chinese would dare say what Stella had just said.
“What’s your next question?” Stella asked.
“Well,” I read from my notes. “How much money do you offer to your parents each month?”
“Are you kidding me?” Stella laughed.
“How much?”
“Nothing!”
Again I was dumbfounded. “Is that everybody, or just you?”
“Everybody.”
“You don’t support your parents? When I earn money, it is expected that one third of it will go to the care of my parents.”
“This is America! Parents owe their children,” Stella said. “Children didn’t ask to be born. Besides, my parents don’t need my help. They own an airport.”
“Own an airport?” I couldn’t believe what I heard.
“Do you have another question?” Stella said as if she was in a hurry.
“Well, I’d like to know what your goal is.”
“What goal?”
“A goal—for example, my goal is to become an American citizen.”
“I don’t know. I am working on getting a pilot’s license.”
I had to look in my dictionary for the word pilot. “Do you mean like a driver’s license for an airplane instead of a car?”
“Yep!” Stella made a flying motion with her hands.
I felt odd. Kind, warm, and generous as Stella was, we had nothing in common. I shared two classes with Stella. One was Poetry Writing, the other Art and Economics. I wouldn’t have signed up for either of these classes if they hadn’t been required for the degree. While Stella was the star of both, I could barely follow. I had never heard the word economics before, and I was unable to comprehend the concept. Stella told me that economics was the subject that her parents discussed over dinner while she was growing up. I had never heard of the words demand and supply. When I asked Stella’s advice on how to survive the class, she suggested that I negotiate an exchange with the professor.
“You have something to offer, something we Americans don’t know about and would be interested in learning, and that’s China,” Stella said.
It turned out to be great advice. Instead of turning in a paper on American economics, I presented a paper on “Chinese Communist Economics.” With Stella’s help, I reported on how socialism worked, and failed to work, in China. I earned a passing grade.
I let Stella know that I needed to be with people who were on my own financial level. She said that she understood. After a semester, we parted on good terms. We remained friends. Once again I sought out the cheapest place to live. I looked in newspapers and searched bulletin boards at local community colleges.
Within a month, I found a group of Chinese students willing to share an apartment near Logan Square. It was a less desirable area farther from downtown Chicago. The five of us moved into a three-bedroom apartment. What made me happy was that my share of the rent was sixty dollars a month.
My temporary job was cleaning construction and event sites. I was not allowed to overwork or help other workers with their jobs. My boss told me that public restrooms and the cafeteria were not for students but for janitors who were union members. “Hard to explain to a foreigner,” he said.
My modeling job for fashion illustration classes was limited. The only other job available was to be a nude model for the painting and drawing department.
“Welcome back!” the clerk at the modeling office said. “The figure-drawing professors would love to have you. They never had a young female Asian model before.”
I was tempted by the pay. Fourteen dollars per hour! It was double what the fashion department paid. I signed up.
There was nothing wrong with being a nude model, I kept telling myself. Yet I didn’t believe myself. The next day my eyes were swollen after a night of crying. I couldn’t stop visualizing removing my clothes in a classroom full of people. I was ashamed and wished that I had other choices. “It’s honest money!” I tried to convince myself.
At 8:30 A.M. I checked in with the lady at the modeling office. She offered me a heater. “You will need this,” she said. “The classroom is on the third floor.”
I burst into tears and my legs refused to move.
“Are you okay?” the lady asked. “Are you sick?”
I shook my head through my tears.
“You must be having your period! Are you? Don’t worry if so. Just go home. You don’t have to do it, you know. Trust me, this happens all the time. Girls having their period at the last minute. That’s why I always schedule a backup model. I can give the backup a call. No trouble at all. Would you like me to call the backup?”
I lost my courage and nodded.
The lady took back the heater. “It’s okay, honey. Call me when your period is over, and I’ll reschedule you.”
I never had the courage to go back.
Dr. Barbara Guenther was a walking impressionistic painting. She taught Essay Writing 101. She was dressed in a fashionable, brightly colored suit with a matching skirt. Part German and part British, she was a tall, slender, middle-aged white lady with brown hair and blue-green eyes. Her lipstick shade always matched the tone of her clothes. She said to us, “You may call me Dr. Guenther, or Barbara Guenther, or Barbara, but never Barb.”
I looked up the words Dr. Guenther had written on the board in my dictionary. As she began to explain the “roots” of -cide, she wrote fungicide, pesticide, and suicide. My mind took off instantly. I stared at the blackboard and copied Dr. Guenther’s writing, but the words did not register with me. As I spelled suicide, I saw Shanghai’s Huangpu River, where I had once contemplated drowning myself. My mind’s eye cast further: I saw the electric wires in my home, which I had planned to touch; the sleeping pills I had collected; the gas stove I almost lit but didn’t because my neighbor had had an asthma attack that night and there was a big gap under her door where gas could travel and take her before me.