Sam Farmer is the Los Angeles Times football writer. Before participating in a panel on professional football’s future in the city, he sat down in the green room to rap about his favorite margar...
by Jason Loose
Hard to believe, but I am a minor celebrity in China. For two weeks, I have had unrelenting calls from reporters, strangers recognize me on the street, and my media nickname, “...
Your bones as fine as
robin wings, I thought you’d fly.
Construction paper, wax,
duct tape, leather belts bound
to your arms, shoulder blades.
Belief a cresting wave. Before.
After. Your bones as fine
as summer, faith. Here, I said,
bell of morning light unfolding
in my hand. When you reach
the sun, I’ll ring it. Fly.
The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America
by Mae Ngai
Hyphenated cultures seem to be a natural part of California’s landscape today, but it wasn’t always so. The Lucky Ones by Mae Ngai offers a fresh look at California history by reconstructing the lives of immigrant and second generation pioneers who lived between cultures when it was not such a common phenomenon. Ngai’s narrative brings Chinese Americans into a richer tradition of historical storytelling by humanizing an ambivalent, middle-class immigrant family, situating their lives within the more well-known histories of Chinese laborers and those who suffered from the 1882 Exclusion Act.
