Ever since I started writing poetry seriously, I have used English inappropriately. — Cathy Park Hong

I’d rather be indebted than be the kind of white man who thinks the world owes him, because to live an ethical life is to be held accountable to history.

Because I didn't learn the language until I started school, I associated English with everything hard: the chalkboard with diagrammed sentences, the syllables in my mouth like hard slippery marbles. English was not an expression of me but a language that was out to get me, threaded with invisible trip wires that could expose me at the slightest misstep.

When I hear the phrase “Asians are next in line to be white,” I replace the word “white” with “disappear.” Asians are next in line to disappear.