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2022 Traditions Contest: Folding Cranes MAG
January 9, 2022
Guangzhou finds its way
back to our muggy kitchen
occupied again and again
by my mother’s homesickness I
hear in the soft silences when she
folds me cranes filled with
leek, pork, and scallions. I call
them birds — not dumplings
because they fly me back years
when America was only a dream.
Naturally, I fold my own now —
hands caked in wheat flour,
asking how many pleats
or feathers in clumsy Cantonese.
At dinner, my chopsticks pluck a
boiled crane, bathe it clean in soy sauce
and set it free like our heritage.
© Sam L., Rosemead, California
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Having immigrated to the United States at a very young age, it's quite difficult for me to connect to my Chinese heritage. I am proud to be an American but it's difficult to define or feel for myself what it means to be Asian-American. In "Folding Cranes," I explore one of the most meaningful traditions I share with my mother in which I bridge the gap between what it means to be both Asian and American.