Before you read this text, you should know that: Quan, Andy. “Immigration.

Quan, Andy. “Immigration.” Contra/diction: New Queer Male Fiction.

• it's a short story going back and forth between two different narratives: Ed. Brett Josef Grubisic. Arsenal Pulp Press, 1998. 63-69.
1) the italicized parts follow the story of a Chinese migrant in the early
ANDY OUAN
1900s who is crossing the ocean to Canada in a ship to find his fortune
and send money back to support his family back in poverty-stricken
Canton (Southeast China); and 2) the non-italicized parts follow the Immigration
narrative of a young gay Chinese-Canadian man (presumably a
descendant of the Chinese migrant in the other narrative) in modern
times. Note the subheadings that divide the story into sections; consider
how the subheadings frame each of those sections of the story and
compare the two protagonists' journeys in terms of how they might
parallel each other.
• "Gold Mountain"/"gum saan" generally refers to the Rocky Mountains
on the west coast of Canada and the United States. Word of the Gold
Rush in the 1800s reached China, so the Chinese named the Rockies PLANS
They make the decision for me, but I agree. Off to Gold Mountain I go,
"Gold Mountain" as a metaphor to describe their belief that they could to seek my fortune. What does this land hold for me, people starving and
easily find their fortune there--hence why so many Chinese men crossed hungry, unrest all over the countryside? Anyways, we are adventurers;
the Pacific Ocean on their own from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, messages come back to our province from all over the world, India, South
despite the racist laws limiting/prohibiting migration from China in both America, Africa. I go to follow in their footsteps. It is 1905, province:
North American countries at that time Canton.
• "white ghosts/devils" = white Canadians
• "Cerberus"--from Greek mythology, a double-headed dog that guards
the entrance to Hades
• "mah jong"--a popular Chinese parlour game traditionally involving ivory
W HEN I TOLD MY PARENTS that I was gay,my mother rolled
up her eyes, and my father left the room. "How can you
decide to take up that lifestyle?" she screamed. "It is dirty, it is not
and/or wooden (now plastic) tiles with different Chinese characters and accepted." Her eyes were glazed over with shock.
patterns, with the goal being to create sets of pairs, similar to games "It's not exactly a lifestyle, Ma. I can't help the way I am." I had
such as poker. Requires four players and often includes betting. notes memorized in my head. I'd thought so long about what I was
going to say.
"You are saying that you were born that way, are you saying that
you are gay because of us?"
"Maybe it's a gene,ma. T hey've been doing a lot of scientific work
lately that seems to imply that there's some sort of biological cause
for homosexuality."
"So you're saying it's something that was in my genes," she rolls
her eyes a second time. "You are not homosexual, Albert!"
She leaves the room,I hear a choked sob.But nothing she does can
change me.I have already started this journey and there is no chang­
ing my course. Maybe it was planted in my genes somewhere in my
family history that I would be a traveller,that I would leave my home.
 ANDY QUAN IMMIGRATION

sparrow alighting on a branch? Was the decision to go immediate or a about how we first heard the word gay: childhood whispers, parents'
slow turning, like leaving red beans to ferment to make into spice. jokes, preachers' condemnations, radio talk shows. We also t�lk
People have died herefrom missing their old homes; a simple cough or about how we heard about the youth group: sign on a bus, a help-line
fever escalated and suddenly they have crossed a bridge from endurance counsellor, a note posted in a gay bar, the phone book. Whether we
to despair. Who can blame them? Are we really happy in this new land? marched right into our first meeting, or circled the block, ten, maybe
White devils treating us like village dogs. Work no easier than the old twenty times.
village but lacking the comfort of what is known. Kevin's has stopped crying and he is listening, his eyes not qmte
In mah jong, you match together tiles with the same patterns and take clean of tears. We'll worry about him, of course, like we worried
them from the centre. Seasons, directions, and flowers can be matched about ourselves. People have died of grief missing their old homes,
with each other to make them disappear. This is what it seems like living fallen into hard crowds, done too many drugs, been sexually reckless.
in Gold Mountain, Gum Saan, looking for a land with gold dust in the Kevin looks at us, and the light of sad angels falls into the moisture
wind. The seasons touch each other and disappear, the years pass;fly out in his eyes. "I want to live in the country. Have a simple life. Are there
of sight into different directions. We dream of home, not the way it was gay people in the country?" A smile en route to a joke but held back
but the way we wished it was. We plan to send our bones there when we one step by hope and one step by grief.
die. "You can go wherever you want." Gerald, a.k.a. Mother, coos in a
voice of down feathers. "But remember, no one sends you there. Make
It could be any youth group, support systems of five and ten and it your choice."
fifteen in big or small cities, probably not in towns, maybe in a For one second, all of us in the circle see ourselves and each other
community centre, or an ill-furnished office or even someone's living walking to the places we've chosen.
room. We sit around and talk about where we came from, the schools
we went to, the friends we lost, our first sexual experiences. We are
linked because we are here together, because we have pulled up chairs
from other tables to join with this one, because we all know each
other's names.
We give each other new names too. Gerald becomes "Mother"
because he always runs around taking care of the other members of
the group. John becomes "Jane" because he is blond and effeminate,
and suggested the name in the first place. Monty becomes "Mary."
But run if you call him that. He hates it. Larry is called "Chuckles"
because of the way his soft belly bounces when he laughs, which is
often since he talks and laughs in equal parts.
This is a bad meeting. There is a new member, who none of us know
very well, and we can't get him to stop crying. "I don't want it," he says
in fragments. ''I'm not like that." "I want to go home." Tall, gangly
Kevin, his thin blond hair falling over his hands which are now
covering his face. He's from a small farming community where he left
his home and family behind; he finds it tough in a city. The old men
in the bars wanted to make friends with him right away, and one, who
seemed nicer than the rest, turned out worse than expected.
So we talk against the toughness of the world, against the tears:

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