42 Street - Times Square


When I go home for vacations or for the summer, I am Ming-Cheng. He is me. Like the veil that Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk, must put over his African interior, I too am covered by this veil. You see, I would probably never be able to set foot in my house again if my parents ever knew that I was gay. People who know me are surprised that my parents can't tell, they say that it is pretty damn obvious. And I agree, around them it is really obvious, because I am Dave, the homosexual. What they don't understand is that there really is no way that my parents could know about my sexuality, Ming-Cheng makes sure of that. Ming-Cheng treats his parents with the utmost respect, Ming-Cheng smiles when his parents ask him, "When are you going to find a nice Chinese girl to marry?" Ming-Cheng understands that his parents, who would not entertain the thought of him dating in high school, are now worried that he doesn't have a girlfriend now that he is in college. He understands his roots, his culture, and he is confined by it. He drowns in it. He is me, and we are we.




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