Eric Lui was born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1968 to parents that came from Taiwan in the 1950’s. His father was an IBM executive and his mother a computer programmer. Lui graduated from Yale in 1990. He was Bill Clinton’s youngest speechwriter. Lui went on to write The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native speaker (1998) along with other essay collections. In Stranger in the Village, Baldwin writes of his experiences as the only black person living in a Swiss village. Baldwin struggled with a stepfather who called him ugly and would not recognize his talent. Both Liu and Baldwin read obsessively. Baldwin was disgusted by racial encounters in America and moved to Paris, remaining there until his death. Baldwin wrote many books and essays
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Baldwin left America to live in France and Liu did everything he could to assimilate with the whites. The standards of the WASP gentry was the proper, dominant method of ensuring that your origins would not be held against you. This was open to European immigrants almost exclusively; to blacks, only on the passing occasion; to Asians, hardly at all (Liu 101). When Baldwin went to this small Swiss village, people of his complexion, a Negro, were rarely seen if ever. The Catholic Church was open all year, the Protestant chapel open only in the summertime when the tourists arrived. The only typewriter belonged to Baldwin and most had never seen one before. Baldwin reacted by being pleasant even when the children of the village shouted Neger! Neger! as he walked along the streets, although they did not mean to be unkind. A Negro was told he must make people like him by smiling. Smile and the world smiles with you did not work at all (Baldwin 120). In America, Baldwin was inflicted with pain, but here the village people said he should let his hair grow long and make himself a winter coat. They would rub his skin to see if the color would come off; they were not intentionally …show more content…
It may be possible to transcend race, it is not always necessary, Liu said “I could have spared myself a great deal of heartache had I understood the choice of race is not simply “embrace or efface” (Liu 105). “Assimilation has remained fixed all this time; fixed in whiteness for power, and fixed in shame which is what the colored are expected to feel for embracing the power” (Liu 101). Times have changed and now a Chinaman, too, may aspire to whiteness. It is necessary for the white man to find a way of living with the Negro in order to live with himself (Baldwin 126). One of the things that distinguishes Americans from other people is that no other people has ever been so deeply involved in the lives of black men, and vice versa (Baldwin 127). America has undergone a revolution of color, class, and culture. This reminds me of something my grandmother told me. My great- great grandmother came to America from Italy and was going to New York on the train with my great grandmother and started to speak in Italian to her. My great grandmother asked her please to speak in English not Italian, so they too could feel accepted and not be looked on as an outsider. Baldwin wrote, “The world is white no longer and it will never be white again, I am not, really, a stranger any longer for any American alive” (Baldwin
Baldwin left America to live in France and Liu did everything he could to assimilate with the whites. The standards of the WASP gentry was the proper, dominant method of ensuring that your origins would not be held against you. This was open to European immigrants almost exclusively; to blacks, only on the passing occasion; to Asians, hardly at all (Liu 101). When Baldwin went to this small Swiss village, people of his complexion, a Negro, were rarely seen if ever. The Catholic Church was open all year, the Protestant chapel open only in the summertime when the tourists arrived. The only typewriter belonged to Baldwin and most had never seen one before. Baldwin reacted by being pleasant even when the children of the village shouted Neger! Neger! as he walked along the streets, although they did not mean to be unkind. A Negro was told he must make people like him by smiling. Smile and the world smiles with you did not work at all (Baldwin 120). In America, Baldwin was inflicted with pain, but here the village people said he should let his hair grow long and make himself a winter coat. They would rub his skin to see if the color would come off; they were not intentionally …show more content…
It may be possible to transcend race, it is not always necessary, Liu said “I could have spared myself a great deal of heartache had I understood the choice of race is not simply “embrace or efface” (Liu 105). “Assimilation has remained fixed all this time; fixed in whiteness for power, and fixed in shame which is what the colored are expected to feel for embracing the power” (Liu 101). Times have changed and now a Chinaman, too, may aspire to whiteness. It is necessary for the white man to find a way of living with the Negro in order to live with himself (Baldwin 126). One of the things that distinguishes Americans from other people is that no other people has ever been so deeply involved in the lives of black men, and vice versa (Baldwin 127). America has undergone a revolution of color, class, and culture. This reminds me of something my grandmother told me. My great- great grandmother came to America from Italy and was going to New York on the train with my great grandmother and started to speak in Italian to her. My great grandmother asked her please to speak in English not Italian, so they too could feel accepted and not be looked on as an outsider. Baldwin wrote, “The world is white no longer and it will never be white again, I am not, really, a stranger any longer for any American alive” (Baldwin