Television and movies were our biggest teachers. When we came to the United States, the Vietnam War was just ratcheting up. And so the Asian faces that I saw on the news, they were the face of the enemy. Asian men, particularly, were either small, ineffective, or they were evil. And those messages were deeply, deeply embedded in me for many years.

The stories I work on, especially for any length of time, do tend to become personal to me.

My grandparents bowed to the Americans and sought to learn from them. My parents sought to be them.

Alex Tizon Quotes