"Things Chinese" by Adrienne Su

This poem was pretty confusing to read but I think I figured out some of it. The speaker is Chinese, but sees America as a land where people can "make-over" their identity. She sees this as a way to get rid of her Chineseness and become the quintessential American. She starts off getting rid of her grandparents, because they are too Chinese. One pair of them refuses to give up their Chinese culture, and the other pair is marked by their amazing ability to cook Chinese food. Both of these factors set them apart from the general population in America. She was able to exempt parts of her education because she could already speak fluent Chinese. She talks about how she "wiped out their earliest years" in regards to her parents and how she made them into "1950s Georgians." Just like in "Stealing Budda's Dinner" she is trying to hide her native culture so she can fit in with the majority and be the "American" she thinks she should be. She says that "everywhere she went there was circumstance, all of it strangely tainted by my very presence." This is the closing of the poem and it implies that no matter what she does to erase her Chinese background she cannot escape it.