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Nina Schatell ’23

Potato latkes and fried dumplings. Credit: Emma Reid ’20

Latkes and Dumplings

When I stand in front of the grey door on the seventh floor of my grandpa’s apartment complex in late December, I know what is coming next: a massive flood of people who don’t look like me will pull me across the threshold in an embrace, exclaiming how big I’ve gotten and how much I’ve grown. An invisible force controls me from that point on. Like a puppet my right foot steps forward, followed by my left. Out of love and respect for my family, I nod and smile, the corners of my mouth straining upward into an expression that conceals my uneasiness.

Don’t get me wrong: I love my family. Celebrating Hanukkah is one of the few times during the whole year that I get to see my dad’s side of the family together in the same room. But sometimes I feel out of place. Sometimes it’s hard—not having anybody in my family who looks like me. When I was younger I used to say to my mom that my eyes looked like dolphins jumping into my nose. The downward shape of my eyes resembles the tail of a fish. When I look at my relatives’ eyes, I see no resemblance. I see eyes with no deep curve to their shape.

The delicious smell of sizzling potato latkes fills the air, pulling my focus away from everyone around me. I get myself a plate and push away the plastic multi-colored dreidels scattered on the dining room table, making space for my food. You can never be alone at one of these parties. Trust me. I’ve tried it. I sit down and look around the brightly lit room and then, the next thing I know, one of my aunts is beside me. Thoughts of my physical differences vanish when I turn my attention toward her. My family is always interested in what’s going on in my life— sometimes even more interested than I am. Every year they ask the same questions—literally you could record my answers and play them on repeat.

“How are you?”

“Good.”

“How’s school?”

“Good.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

It’s always been my tendency to give information on a need-to-know-basis. The consistency of my responses both disappoints and reassures them that everything is fine.

Sometimes I wonder how holidays would be celebrated if I were still living in China. I wouldn’t speak English; the room would be filled with the aroma of fried dumplings, and I wouldn’t notice anybody’s eyes because they would be identical to mine.

I take a seat on the couch and look around. I ponder, If I were Caucasian, would my family interact with me differently? Does my eye shape affect the repetitive questions my family asks me? I take comfort in the certainty that my aunts would still ask me the same questions. I don’t think my race impacts how they interact with me. While I do question this from time to time, I see how my aunts treat my cousins. They care about and love their children the same way they love me—by asking questions and being affectionate. My external differences don’t make my relationship with my family members any different than their relationship with any of the other children in the family.

When I was in middle school, I used to help my mother with the week’s laundry on Sundays. I would quickly shove the darks and the lights into two separate washers, and then wander from the laundry room to the building’s communal library down the hall. Residents signed up to care for the space; they organized shelves and restacked books. The library was set up by genre, and contained a children’s section. One morning when I was in sixth grade, I wandered over to the biography section and scanned the shelves for one that looked interesting. Landing on Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah, I grabbed it from the shelf. One of the first things I noticed on the middle of the front cover, located next to a black and white photograph of Mah as a child, was the subtitle. “The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter” gives teenage readers a firsthand clue as to the emotions this memoir explores: this is not a happy story. As the daughter that caused her mother’s death during childbirth, Mah always felt out of place with her siblings. Her father remarried after he was widowed. Mah didn’t have any siblings she was close to. Her brothers teased her and played mean tricks on her. Initially she was close to one of her older sisters, but her stepmother, Niang, quickly put a stop to it. She took the older sister under her wing, isolating the sister from Mah so that they rarely saw each other. The stepmother bedecked the sister in jewels and exquisite clothes so that, in comparison, Mah looked like a member of the lower class. Mah carried the feeling of being disowned by her birth father and stepmother throughout her life. Her siblings broke off any ties to her, which left Mah with many lonely days to herself.

Throughout Mah’s story, I connected with her need to belong in her family. Although our circumstances were different, we were both on a journey to find a way to feel accepted in our family. While I do feel that my family loves me as who I am, I cannot help but feel self-conscious that I am the only Chinese person there. Through tight hugs and juicy kisses on my round cheeks from my family, I feel their love for me coursing through their body. I hope my physical response conveys the same feeling toward them. My grandfather’s living room symbolizes unity at this party. While our whole family can’t squeeze around the dining table (even with multiple leaves in it), we sit on cushioned chairs set up by the window and a light brown embroidered couch. This is a very special time of year, as we get to catch up and hear about all the interesting events that have happened since the last time we spoke. For the majority of my family, that would have been since the party from last year! I explain my high school commute to my suburban relatives, and how I take two subways and transfer at Times Square at rush hour every morning and evening. I listen to my aunts when they tell me about my younger cousins’ transitions from elementary school to middle school to high school. Through clinks of silverware and bites of homemade latkes and noodle kugel, I lean back and smile as I hear laughter overlap bits and pieces of multiple stories. I am now used to the loud noise that comes with celebrating Hanukkah. The stories that I tell my family add to the noise in the room, and make me a part of the tradition that is carried on year after year.

*

Throughout Mah’s education, she received multiple awards for her achievements. Mah was placed as head girl of her school, Sheng Xin, which was a major honor. Her friends from school decided to bring a surprise party over to her house to celebrate her feat. Unbeknownst to them were the stakes for Mah, if Niang found out. Ah Sun, her grandmother, tried to console Mah by saying, “‘They mean well’” (113). Mah was scared that her friends would find out about her difficult household life. The young girl was greeted with great exclamations of congratulations from her peers. Their excitement overpowered Mah and she became silent, terrified that Niang would come downstairs and yell at everyone to leave.

There were times in my early teens where I struggled with feeling secure in my family. This emotion continues to show up in large family gatherings such as the annual Hanukkah parties. I mainly feel this way at the start of the celebration. I don’t see the majority of my dad’s family on a regular basis, let alone in the same room, so it’s very overwhelming when I first enter the room. Although I know my family would never want to hurt me, the bits of conversation on top of each other makes me feel anxious because we all converse in one general vicinity. There are also times during the evening when I look up from my plate of food or the person I’m talking with and scan the room. I know that I am the only Asian person there, but sometimes it feels like the reality has just hit me.

Although growing up as a Chinese Jewish American has made me feel isolated at some points, it’s something that is unique about me. The majority of my friends are Christian, so we don’t bond over celebrating the same religious holidays. I know that I am fortunate to be a part of a large family who not only introduced me to their religion and culture but allowed me to share mine with them. I take friends and relatives down to Manhattan’s Chinatown in New York City, introducing them to my favorite bakeries and bubble tea cafes and dumpling houses. Every year my dad and I buy decorations for Lunar New Year, and we usually go to the New Year Parade.

Even though sometimes I feel like an outsider, I always know that I have a home and a family that loves me. Latkes aren’t my new dumplings; they’re a different part of me that symbolizes unity in my loving family, while dumplings connect me to my Chinese culture. Though I’m more than seven thousand miles away from the country I was born in, I only physically left; my immediate family celebrates my Chinese culture, reminding me of traditions that could have been. I can’t leave my past behind; it will always be with me. Over time I’ve learned that though I don’t have the same eye shape as the mother who raised me, I have the same love, and I’ll take that over anything any day of my life.