Whole🥟

The teacher, in her outfit of screen-printed flowers

the ones of vibrancy that clashed

so carefully yet so large,

overwhelming,

walked up to my mom.

She was unemployed at the time.

They had a conversation,

an adult conversation,

too high up in the clouds for me to hear.

I was short.

I am still short.

Later, my mom told me

The teacher asked if she could do a

presentation on Chinese culture for my classmates.

She was ecstatic.

Planning what to bring,

Planning what to say.

I was happy for her.

I didn’t think my classmates liked my culture,

knew my culture.

They unconsciously,

subconsciously

didn’t like the cold dumplings

with the hardened dough that stuck together

I bought every week to lunch.

They questioned the language I spoke

when my grandparents walked and picked me up.

My mom made 35 dumplings.

She boiled them.

They were frozen,

stinging with chemical, astringent substances.

She counted them.

Put them into our Costco plastic containers.

She printed out the 12 zodiac animal sheets

like the ones I used to analyze

in the dingy Chinese American buffet.

She made a PowerPoint

on her overheating old computer

With pictures of red.

Glowing red.

Vibrant red.

As the presentation finished,

she opened the box of dumplings,

and some of my classmates declined the offer.

But some of them ate

the mysterious alien product.

Product of my Chinese ancestors.

Product of the chemicals of the plant

where they were mass produced.

They asked about my culture.

About the order of the 12 zodiac

And I had to look at the sheets my mom printed out

Because I didn’t know,

I didn’t know the order.

I didn’t know.

I was happy they asked, but I felt

ashamed.

My mom answered with confidence

Like the glowing red

On her PowerPoint screen.

I wished for her knowledge

Yet I wished for my classmates

To understand who I was.

Who I was, I wished to understand.

A month ago,

I went back to my elementary school.

It was a one hour drive.

The neighborhood with the ranch style homes

American flags hanging precariously

On the painted wooden porches

Everything still looked the same.

The leftover snow covering the peaks on the

Yellowing grass

Tainted with tire tracks

But many winters had passed

I walked on the blackened asphalt with its many cracks

to the back

To the room where the presentation

Had happened

And I thought to myself

Part of who I was

Were the times

where I felt lonely in the class

being the only Asian American girl.

The girl with the square glasses

rimmed with gold.

The girl who moved away

Who's family bought different frozen dumplings now

who understood

that wholeness

came from the hardened rethawed wrapper

enclosing the pork and chive of a dumpling.

savory and bittersweet.