try to discover what he might be able to achieve on his own. He was not the first person anyone in my family had known who came here, however. Many immigrants have come here, including some people my family has been very close to. They crossed the Pacific in search of a new frontier, and they sent back accounts of a society as vast and open as anything we could have dreamed.
My uncle followed them. He was our first pioneer. He had to learn a new and very different language, as well as how to get by in a strange culture, where even the stores sold unusual items and the streets could be dangerous. He studied here, in schools unlike any he had known at home, and he learned to make his way in America. He did find his own connections here, in the Taiwanese community that formed a haven and a link to the place in which he had been born, but he did not isolate himself within that community. He moved to America to become an American. He succeeded very well.
When I was 18, I followed him. I left behind my family, my friends, the way of life I had always known, and my ties to the world with which I had become comfortable. I went in search of something I found frightening and exhilarating at the same time. I had my uncle here to provide me with a place to stay and a fragment of familiarity, but I too had to learn a strange new language and make my way through unfamiliar streets. I too ca
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