Blues and Greens : : A Produce Worker's Journal / / Alan Chong Lau.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Hawaii Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2015
• VerfasserIn: Lau, Alan Chong,
• Place / Publishing House: Honolulu : : University of Hawaii Press, , [2023]; ©2000
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (136 p.)

Alan Chong Lau’s poetic memoir of his days as a produce worker in Seattle’s Chinatown reveals a microcosm of grassroots, working-class Asian America—a world where customers, workers, and fruits and vegetables intersect in exchanges that crackle with energy and brim over with humor. With the simple profundity of a Zen koan, the poems bear witness to people’s humanity. Lau portrays in words and pictures a community in constant flux as it moves to the push and pull of immigration. Blues and Greens has a lot to say about Asian Americans. What emerges is an acutely observed, nuanced critique of where Asian Americans—native-born, refugee, and migrant—are today.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A blue note -- I. Blues -- Morning blues -- 6 A.M -- Primping -- Going for a dip -- Preparing sashimi -- Winter melon -- Nasubi -- Melons -- Chi goo -- Bitter melon -- Ginger -- Red delicious -- Uncovering the evidence -- Boys at play -- The end of spring -- Bean sprouts -- The price -- When it rains -- II. Greens -- Raw peanuts -- Grapes -- Stormbringer -- The green mustache -- Shoplifter -- Mustard greens -- Issei farmer -- The gambler's wife -- The voice -- This is only a test -- The old man remembers asparagus -- Fishing -- In summer -- The accident -- Omens -- Mothra's cousin grazes the produce rack -- III. Stranger root -- Strange root -- Paper flowers -- The sale on water chestnuts -- Matsutake, living treasures under the pine -- Sorting things out -- Escape from the fish tank -- Garden of Eden -- Garden of Eden 2 -- Sign language -- The king's English -- The gesture -- The meat of a mango -- IV. Hello, little bean sprout! -- Sprout woman -- Plumbing the depths -- Late summer -- The footprint -- Green onions -- Black iris -- Scavengers -- The sore loser -- The gate -- This sky -- Starting work -- The apology -- Tools of his trade -- Baby Ruth -- Finding the hair of a Mexican woman in this box of sugar peas -- The raft -- A view from the stairs -- Boredom -- The river, the potatoes -- After the rain -- V. Long beans and the maori warrior -- Long beans and the maori warrior -- The squeak of sugar peas -- The return of the gambler's wife -- Frost warning -- The argument -- Three lumpy oranges -- Bunching Gai Lan -- The spill -- Perfection in design -- The kids from Tokyo -- The interrogation -- ID at dusk -- The fight -- In front of the bank -- Orphan -- Her brown face -- Day of the parade -- A funny word -- Two women talking -- The boy and the Jackfruit -- When work lets out -- Coming home -- About the author