Jimmy Yang: How to American

I can now find the humor when I look back at my first day of school in America, but it wasn’t very funny for the thirteen-year-old Chinese boy who had to navigate through the alien world at the time. He was lost, he was scared, he wanted to go home.

It was hard.

Every immigrant has gone through a difficult journey. My story is just one out of a million stories of people who left their home country hoping for a better future. I wish I could go back in time and tell the little thirteen-year-old Jimmy that everything was going to be just fine. He probably wouldn’t even believe what I’d tell him. “Jimmy, you are going to watch a lot of BET and start a rap group called Yellow Panthers. Then you’ll completely disappoint your parents and become a stand-up comedian, used car salesman and strip club DJ. But don’t worry, because you’ll eventually come back around and get on an HBO show called Silicon Valley !” My thirteen-year-old self would probably stare at me blankly and ask, “What is BET? What is stand-up comedian? Who are you?”

From eating at El Pollo Loco salsa bar to the Golden Globes buffet, I managed to stumble through this journey with the perseverance of an immigrant and the mindset of an American. I learned to thrive on being uncomfortable to pursue what I loved. The English language was uncomfortable, so I studied BET until it became my natural tongue. Doing stand-up was uncomfortable, so I hung out at the Comedy Palace until it became my second home. Auditions were uncomfortable, so I spent six hundred bucks a month on acting classes while I slept in some dude’s living room for three hundred bucks until acting became my profession. I never looked at these challenges as barriers; I saw them as opportunities to grow. I’d rather try to pursue my dream knowing that I might fail miserably than to have never tried at all. That is How to American.

PROUD ASIAN SON

I wrote this book in LA, NYC, Chicago, Atlanta, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Hong Kong. I am grateful that comedy and acting have taken me to these places and allowed me to be here today. I have to constantly pinch myself to realize that this is not a pipe dream anymore. No matter how many different roles I play, the inside always feels the same. I’m still the same kid who grew up in Hong Kong, the same kid who didn’t understand “What’s up?” and the same kid who fucked up cooking the rice.

It was the most special occasion to be able to share the big screen with my dad on Patriots Day. I finally felt like a proud Asian son who was able to give back to my family. Sharing the same screen with my dad, Mark Wahlberg and Kevin Bacon was the epitome of the American experience. After the Patriots Day premiere, I finally asked my dad:

“Dad, are you proud of me?”

He replied earnestly, “In a Chinese family we don’t have to say it all the time. You should know that I’m always proud of you.” Deep down, I knew that, it was just nice to hear him say it.

My mom has since moved back to LA, where she lives with my dad in their newly purchased home. It is our family’s very first house. Last year they also got our family’s very first dog, the cutest pug puppy, and my parents named her Toffee, because, well, “It just sounded pretty good, like Jimmy.” When we were looking to get a dog, my dad vehemently said, “I don’t like dogs. You guys can go get a dog, but I won’t help you take care of it.” Two months later, he was making Toffee a home-cooked Shanghainese meal every day. To see the affection my mom and dad have for Toffee, I realized how good I had it when I was growing up. Even though we might never say “I love you” to each other in Chinese culture, there is so much love in these two human beings I truly hit the lottery in life to have them as my parents. My dad once told me:

“Having you as my son is like winning the lottery… Not the Mega Millions jackpot, but like a small twenty-dollar prize.”

Some things never change.