Asian American Poetry

Chinese Silence No. 22

Author: Timothy Yu
Date: 31/05/19
Event: The silence of Chinese people
Characters: People of different nationalities
Memorable Quote: "The Italians are making their pasta, the French are making things French, and the Chinese cultivate their silence."

This poem basically talks about the stereotype upon the Chinese people. When reading the poem I thought about the fact that Chinese people have been in the US for years now, but nobody has spoken much about them. People talk about Italian, French, and Canadian people, but almost no one mentions the Chinese population. In fact, we mostly know them because of how fast and good workers they are and the Chinatowns that are so stereotyped as well and do not resemble the Chinese culture with exactitude. Hence, as the poem states, the Chinese have remained silent within American society. Indeed, silence is appreciated by the Chinese in a way that Americans do not understand; they are to very different cultures that coexist in the same country, and I believe that this is something that the author of the poem wants to highlight. The Chinese culture is by far one of the most different cultures that exist in the US, and the fact that they remain silent does not mean that they do not exist or that they cannot speak up as the author of the poem did by writing "100 Chinese Silences."