There is a twelve-minute video that I’ve had saved in the cloud for nearly a decade. Every time I set up a new phone, it’s the first item to appear in my photo album.
It’s 2012, two days before Christmas, 12:25 p.m. My father and I are driving to Steph’s apartment in Providence, which is only ninety minutes away.
We are in the middle of a conversation. I don’t remember how it began, but since it’s right after college when I am parsing through identity, I’m not surprised it develops into this:
ME: Do you identify as American or Chinese?
DADDY: I think of myself as American Chinese.
ME: What do you think other people see you as?
DADDY: Well, depending on who that person is, why would I care about what he feel? I am my own person, that is OK for me…
ME: One question I never asked you was, did you ever want to go back to China or was the goal to always stay in America?
DADDY: No, no. China has nothing for me.
ME: What do you mean?
DADDY: Well. That’s what it is, you know. We came to Hong Kong, run away, and then it’s a Communist, and Communists are against people they call land owners, capitalists, or whatever they call it. See, Communists is a very ideal concept when people have no money—
I know then how the conversation might unfold.
He’s driving, and my phone catches his profile: He is wearing his clip-on sunglasses and zipped into his oversized L.L.Bean jacket with the rip in the sleeve that over the past decade has grown larger each winter.
I gently try to prod him back to my question.
ME: Back to how you consider yourself American Chinese, or Chinese American. What does that even mean? What does that mean to you?
DADDY: Well, in America…as long as you make enough money to survive, you can do whatever you like. If you think that you have enough money, you don’t have to work if you don’t want to. You can live anywhere you like, talk whatever you like, and things like that. Those are the freedom that America offer people. Other countries does not have this type of freedom.
This is not unfamiliar territory.
ME: What do you think of the American Dream? What is that to you? Is that it?
DADDY: Well, depending on how you define as the American Dream.
ME: What do you define as the American Dream?
DADDY: I think some people define it as, you get a house and you get the freedom, you get enough to eat, things like that.
ME: I’m asking about you personally. Do you think there is an American Dream, and if so, what is it to you?
DADDY: Well. My dream is just, have enough freedoms and be happy and enough things to eat, or I can do whatever I like. Travel wherever I want to go and stay wherever I want to stay.
ME: So right now at…age sixty-four? How old are you? You’re turning sixty-four, right?
He laughs in response. When I ask his age again, insisting that he answer at least this question, he makes a clicking sound and lets out a dramatic huff so his bewilderment is unmistakable.
DADDY: Oh, you cannot calculate?
ME: You were born in 1949. You’re sixty-three turning sixty-four. At almost sixty-four, do you feel that you’ve accomplished that, your sense of the American Dream?
DADDY: It’s alright. You know, there is always something you’re looking for all the time. That’s how we keep going.
ME: Do you think there is ever a point where you’re going to wonder whether or not you’ve made it? What is “making it”? Are you always pushing forward?
But doesn’t it imply that we’re working toward something? At what point do we stop and say “I’m satisfied”? Do you ever expect you’ll reach a point where you’ll think you’re satisfied?
DADDY: Well, I think in order for people to keep on going they have to have a target, they are shooting toward it.
If there is no hope, then there’s no motivation to go forward.
There is always something you’re looking forward to for you to achieve in order to get motivated to achieve that goal.
ME: So what are you looking forward to? What’s moving you forward personally?
The GPS cuts in. Drive 9.4 miles on U.S. route 6. He is quiet. The gloves he bought on extra sale from Big Lots are a couple of sizes too large and turn his hands into paws on the steering wheel.
ME: Do you know what’s moving you forward?
DADDY: Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. One step at a time.
ME: What are your steps?
DADDY: Doing whatever I feel like I can enjoy doing.
ME: Do you have a goal?
DADDY: No, not a specific goal.
ME: Are you happy?
Silence.
My father looks down. He glances out his window. His jaw twitches.
For some reason, I stop filming and put down my phone.