I don't remember feeling different until I got to first grade, and John Walsh made chinese eyes at me. When I looked at white kids, I saw myself. I mean growing up where I did that's all that I was exposed to. I was so color blind, or color oblivious, at the time, when I looked in the mirror, I saw blue eyes, blonde hair, and white skin. I think growing up like that, so culturally unaware, made me the twinkie that I have become. Twinkie was a term that I learned from the one other Chinese kid in my whole elementary school, Andy Wong.

"You are such a twinkie!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know, a twinkie, yellow in the outside, but white on the inside."

At the time I really didn't know what to think. I was just defensive because I was being attacked, what Andy was saying didn't really sink in until recess was over and I went inside to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I opened my mouth to check to see if what Andy had said was true. I looked in my and there they were, my teeth were white, not yellow like Andy's.