When they ask me, what is your nationality?
I falter; should I say Chinese? Or should I say American?
Because I am, well, both.

My white, black, and hispanic friends ask me for my name
And I respond, Julia, confused because they already know it.
But they shake their heads and laugh, their big eyes glittering,
And their pale skin blushing.

We mean your Chinese name, they say.
And I blush, too.
I mutter, Mun Jee.

Because I am ashamed that the name
Sounds as foreign on my tongue as it does on my friends'
When they repeat it over and over again.

Jook sing is the term that my mother
And my grandmother
And my relatives from China
Use for my brothers, my cousins, and I.

It means lack of filial piety.
It means challenging traditions and values.
It means we are illiterate in the tongues of our ancestors.
It means American-Born.

ABC aren't only letters of the alphabet,
because it is an acronym too:
American Born Chinese.