by Charles Yu
PROSECUTION
Detective, I just have one question for you.
GREEN
Go for it.
PROSECUTION
What are you doing for dinner tonight?
OLDER BROTHER
Okay, that’s, that’s, I don’t even know what’s going on. I move for an immediate mistrial.
JUDGE
Quit with the grandstanding. That stuff only works on TV.
GREEN
Can I say something?
JUDGE
Of course you can. Anything you want. Would you like to sit up here with me? In the judge’s chair?
OLDER BROTHER
That’s definitely not allowed. This is literally a sham.
GREEN
(to you)
What are you looking for? Do you think you’re the only group to be invisible?
How about:
Older women
Older people in general
People that are overweight
People that don’t conform to conventional Western beauty standards
Black women
Women in general in the workplace
Are you sure you’re not looking for something that you feel entitled to? Isn’t this a kind of narcissism?
(then)
Are you sure you’re not asking to be treated like a White man?
OLDER BROTHER
He’s asking to be treated like an American. A real American. Because, honestly, when you think American, what color do you see? White? Black?
(dramatic pause)
We’ve been here two hundred years. The first Chinese came in 1815. Germans and Dutch and Irish and Italians who came at the turn of the twentieth century. They’re Americans.
(points at himself)
Why doesn’t this face register as American?
Is it because we make the story too complicated? Because we haven’t figured out how yet. Whether it’s a tragedy or a comedy or something in between. If we haven’t cracked the code of what it’s like to be inside this face, then how can we explain it to anyone else?
PROSECUTION
Objection. Who cares?
JUDGE
Sustained.
OLDER BROTHER
Can I ask a question then?
JUDGE
Go ahead.
OLDER BROTHER
This is the Case of the Missing Asian, right?
JUDGE
Yes. What’s your point?
OLDER BROTHER
If I was the Asian who disappeared, and now I’m back and standing here and obviously okay, and there is a clear and plausible explanation for where I was—at Harvard Law School—then what is my client on trial for?
PROSECUTION
(rises)
There was another guy who disappeared.
OLDER BROTHER
Who?
JUDGE
(points at you)
You.
YOU
I’m on trial for my own disappearance?
OLDER BROTHER
Welcome to Black and White.
YOU
Am I the suspect? Or the victim?
JUDGE
That’s what we’re here to decide. Prosecution may call its next witness.
PROSECUTION
Prosecution rests, Your Honor.
Commotion in the courtroom. Ominous music.
JUDGE
Great. Moving right along. Defense will call its first witness.
Older Brother looks at you.
OLDER BROTHER
You ready for this?
YOU
I am. Also, do I really have a choice?
OLDER BROTHER
You do know kung fu. And I can still fight. We could just kick our way out of here.
YOU
Let’s call that Plan B.
OLDER BROTHER
Defense calls to the stand Mr. Willis Wu, aka Generic Asian Man Number Three/Delivery Guy, aka Generic Asian Man Number Two, aka Kung Fu Guy, aka Kung Fu Dad.
As you walk across the room, you look out into the gallery, which has tripled in size and is now overflowing out into the hallway. It seems like all of the SRO is in here now.
OLDER BROTHER
State your name.
YOU
Willis Wu.
OLDER BROTHER
Mr. Wu, is it true that you have an internalized sense of inferiority?
YOU
What?
OLDER BROTHER
That because on the one hand you, for obvious reasons, have not been and can never be fully assimilated into mainstream, i.e., White America—
YOU
Dude, what are you saying?
OLDER BROTHER
And on the other hand neither do you feel fully justified in claiming solidarity with other historically and currently oppressed groups. That while your community’s experience in the United States has included racism on the personal and the institutional levels, including but not limited to: immigration quotas, actual federal legislation expressly excluding people who look like you from entering the country. Legislation that was in effect for almost a century. Antimiscegenation laws. Discriminatory housing policies. Alien land laws and restrictive covenants. Violation of civil liberties including internment. That despite all of that, you somehow feel that your oppression, because it does not include the original American sin—of slavery—that it will never add up to something equivalent. That the wrongs committed against your ancestors are incommensurate in magnitude with those committed against Black people in America. And whether or not that quantification, whether accurate or not, because of all of this you feel on some level that you maybe can’t even quite verbalize, out of shame or embarrassment, that the validity and volume of your complaints must be calibrated appropriately, must be in proportion to the aggregate suffering of your people.
(then)
Your oppression is second-class.
YOU
Which side are you on?
JUDGE
It’s a fair question, counselor.
OLDER BROTHER
Your Honor, I’m building a defense for my client, based on his particular predicament.
JUDGE
What predicament is that?
OLDER BROTHER
Someone who can’t be viewed through either lens. Whose case cannot be properly considered by this court, where the rules and assumptions are based on a particular dialectic. Someone whose story will never fit into Black and White.
(then)
The error in your reasoning is built right into the premise—using the Black experience as the model for the Asian immigrant is necessarily going to lead to this. It’s based on an analogy, on a comparison, on something quantitative.
But the experience of Asians in America isn’t just a scaled-back or dialed-down version of the Black experience. Instead of co-opting someone else’s experience or consciousness, he must define his own.
(then)
I would draw the court’s attention to the case of People v. Hall.
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA (1854)
People v. Hall
Hugh C. Murray of the Cal S. Ct. ruled that the Act of April 16, 1850, Section 14, which forbade “Blacks and Indians” from testifying in favor of or against a white man, was applicable to the Chinese, who were legally Indians because both groups were descended from the same Asiatic ancestors.
From the opinion of California Supreme Cour
t Justice H. C. Murray:
When Columbus first landed upon the shores of this continent…
he imagined that he had accomplished the object of his expedition, and that the Island of San Salvador was one of those islands of the Chinese Sea lying near the extremity of India…
Acting upon the hypothesis, he gave to the Islanders the name Indian. From that time…
The American Indian and the Mongolian or Asiatic, were regarded as the same type of human species.
OLDER BROTHER
Murray’s reasoning here is breathtaking in its twisted audacity. The legitimacy of categorizing “Asiatics” in such a way as to justify lumping them into the clause “Blacks and Indians” (in order to deny them the right to testify against Whites) is based on the subjective state of mind of a single man (Christopher Columbus) at a particular historical moment hundreds of years ago, who happened at that moment to be spectacularly and egregiously mistaken about where on the globe he had drifted into; thus a navigational misunderstanding of the world itself becomes the justification for a legally binding category.
JUDGE
Basically, a mistake.
OLDER BROTHER
Exactly. To put it another way, because in 1492 Columbus had no clue where he was, Chinese should have the same rights as Blacks, which is to say, no rights. Forget that this is likely a fiction—even taking the argument seriously on its face, the effect of this is that we have codified with the force of law a category: Blacks and Asiatics, separating them (because obviously, creating a new category of non-White), a secondary effect is that it also codifies Asiatics as outside the Black category.
Inferior, and yet not in the same way Blacks were considered inferior.
The judge leans forward, listening now. Green and Turner, and even the prosecutor, too. Older Brother has their attention. Someone in the gallery yells, you tell ’em, OB.
JUDGE
Order. I’ll have order in my court.
OLDER BROTHER
Somehow, in two hundred years, every wave, every new boatload of Asians, still as fresh, as alien to this land as the first.
(then)
This is it. The root of it all. The real history of yellow people in America. Two hundred years of being perpetual foreigners.
Older Brother pauses. Takes a sip of water. Not in a rush at all. Cool as ever. Your heart, on the other hand, is pounding so hard you think it might be visible through your shirt. What is everyone thinking? How can he be saying all of this, in open court, in front of Black and White and the American justice system? And yet—no one’s kicked him out. Yet.
OLDER BROTHER (CONT’D)
They zoned us, kept us roped off from everyone else. Trapped us inside. Cut us off from our families, our history. So we made it our own place. Chinatown. A place for preservation and self-preservation.
Give them what they feel is right, is safe. Make it fit their ideas of what is out there. Don’t threaten them. Chinatown and indeed being Chinese is and always has been, from the very beginning, a construction, a performance of features, gestures, culture, and exoticism. An invention, a reinvention, a stylization. Figuring out the show, finding our place in it, which was the background, as scenery, as nonspeaking players. Figuring out what you’re allowed to say. Above all, trying to never, ever offend. To watch the mainstream, find out what kind of fiction they are telling themselves, find a bit part in it. Be appealing and acceptable, be what they want to see.
(then)
My client was a part of this system. Both victim and suspect, he killed countless Asian men.
(gasp from the gallery)
Killed them and then, six weeks later, became them again, as if nothing had happened, as if he had no memory or remorse. He allowed it to happen, allowed himself to become Generic, so that no one could even tell what was happening. He is guilty, Your Honor, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Guilty of wanting to be part of something that never wanted him.
(beat)
The defense rests.
Silence. Then: applause. Hooting and hollering from everyone. It’s like the casino and karaoke night and a party in the SRO all at once—raucous laughter and unfiltered emotion. Someone said it. Someone stood up and said all the shit that we never say, didn’t even know how to say. Older Brother to the rescue, after all, fulfilling his destiny with his mouth and his brain instead of his hands and feet.
You look back to see if Sifu is in the courtroom. You see Old Asian Woman. But you don’t see him. Where is he?
JUDGE
The court will now recess while the jury deliberates.
The jury files out.
Green and Turner approach your table.
TURNER
(to Older Brother)
You should come work for the DA.
OLDER BROTHER
Thanks. But I’m good.
GREEN
(to you)
Good luck, Willis.
When it’s finally empty in the courtroom, you turn to Older Brother.
YOU
Wow.
OLDER BROTHER
Are you happy with your representation?
YOU
I mean, yeah. The way you talked about history and all that.
OLDER BROTHER
You have no idea what I was saying, do you?
YOU
Absolutely none. Seriously no clue.
Older Brother laughs. Nice to see him crack a smile.
YOU (CONT’D)
Just the fact that you stood up there, inside this building, in an American courtroom, and argued my case.
OLDER BROTHER
Our case. I hope it was enough.
He goes out to the vending machine, buys you each a soda.
OLDER BROTHER
To our day in court.
You gulp down the can, just now realizing how tense you are. Ears still buzzing, heart still racing.
The jury’s already coming back. Everyone hurries back into the courtroom to hear the verdict. The jurors file back in. The foreperson steps up.
YOU
(whispering)
That seemed quick.
OLDER BROTHER
Yeah.
YOU
What does that mean?
OLDER BROTHER
I don’t know.
YOU
What does it usually mean?
OLDER BROTHER
I don’t think that’s relevant. I’ve never defended someone for self-imprisonment before. Guess we’ll find out.
JUDGE
The forewoman will read the verdict.
FOREWOMAN
Your Honor, in the case of People vs. Wu aka Generic Asian Man, we the jury of the people find the defendant:
Guilty as charged.
OLDER BROTHER
This is bullshit.
The courtroom erupts into chaos. The judge bangs his gavel to no avail. The bailiff has his hand on his weapon.
JUDGE
Order! Order! People! Settle down or I will find you all in contempt.
(then, to you)
Before I sentence you, do you have anything to say for yourself, Mr. Wu?
You look at Older Brother. He nods.
You rise, face the prosecutor, Turner and Green, the judge, and, most important, all of the assembled onlookers in the gallery. Up front, all of you, on trial together. The Generic Asian Men.
YOU
Ever since I was a boy, I’ve dreamt of being Kung Fu Guy.
(then)
Man, my throat is dry again. I need water. Can I have water?
>
Turner comes over, hands you a bottle.
YOU
Thanks.
(you down the whole bottle)
Ever since I was a boy, I’ve dreamt of being Kung Fu Guy.
I practiced all those years, dreaming of tomorrow, of the next day, of the day it would come. And then one day, finally, after waiting however many decades for it, after how many nights staring at the ceiling or my poster of Bruce Lee or hearing Sifu’s words in my head, I finally got my shot. And when I did, you know what? I thought: I wonder why I wanted this so bad.
Murmurs from the gallery. The Generic Asian Men look confused. So do the Cheuks, and the Monk, and the Hostess, and the Emperor and all of the Asian Gangsters.
TURNER
They used you guys. Against us. Against yourselves.
Older Brother seems to understand, nodding along. Old Asian Woman, too—a twinkle in her eye. You finally got it. She sees it. You finally understood what she meant.
YOU
Kung Fu Guy is just another form of Generic Asian Man.
You’ve never really given a monologue before. The lights go down, except for the one on you. The light, it’s on you, and it’s hitting you just right.
YOU (CONT’D)
(deep breath)
We’re all the same. Aren’t we? Generic Asian Man. Maybe I’m Kung Fu Guy at the moment, but I know as well as you all do that this is about half a rung above jack shit and I’m about one flubbed line from being busted back down to the background pool. It sucks being Generic Asian Man.
A couple of affirmative grunts.
YOU (CONT’D)
But at the same time, I’m guilty, too. Guilty of playing this role. Letting it define me. Internalizing the role so completely that I’ve lost track of where reality starts and the performance begins. And letting that define how I see other people. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. Fetishizing Black people and their coolness. Romanticizing White women. Wishing I were a White man. Putting myself into this category.
You find Karen’s eyes in the gallery.
YOU (CONT’D)
By putting ourselves below everyone, we’re building in a self-defense mechanism. Protecting against real engagement. By imagining that no one wants us, that all others are so different from us, we’re privileging our own point of view.
