The following is an excerpt from One Asian Eye: Growing Up Eurasian in America by Jean Giovanetti. Review free sample chapters atwww.iuniverse.com

I got a job when I was sixteen not because I was ambitious. It was just that all of my friends were working and there was nothing else to do. I applied for two hostess jobs at local restaurants—one was at the Apple Barn, and the other was at the Golden Dragon. I never heard from the Apple Barn. Meanwhile, the owner at the Golden Dragon stared at me while I filled out the application.
“You’re Korean and Italian,” she said without hesitation.
I was completely surprised. No one had ever even come close to guessing my heritage correctly before.
She hired me on the spot, even though I had no experience and was too young to serve liquor.
From that night on every weekend from five o’clock to midnight I could be found perched atop a wobbly bar stool by the cash register surrounded by a glowing cabinet filled with fake jade jewelry, Oolong tea, and an army of fat smiling plastic Buddha glasses with straws sticking out of their bellies. When I was sitting there, I ordered food for the buffet, and cleaned the sneeze glass over the steam tables. I also seated the diners when they came in, took their money when they left, and packed phone orders for carry out. It was my very first job and I liked it.
I also liked my boss, although everyone else was afraid of her. She was a divorced single mother in her early thirties with two kids. Her ex-husband was Italian, which gave her the special insight into my ethnic background. She smoked Virginia Slims like a demon which encouraged the local kids to call her “Dragon Lady.” While she had a beautiful Chinese name, she insisted on being called “Traci with an “i.”” None of the white dining room staff could understand her English.
“Shut the elephant,” Traci often yelled.
“What?” the servers always responded.
“SHUT THE ELEPHANT,” Traci would repeat louder.
The servers would look puzzled, causing Traci to erupt with a stream of Chinese obscenities.
“Tell them,” she’d shout at me, her interpreter.
“Traci says, ‘shut the air vent,’” I’d say quietly, trying not to laugh.
Traci kept a small shrine in the corner of the main dining room on a tall shelf near the ceiling where she often left a small glass of water and an orange. On Saturday nights, she’d burn incense in front of the shrine for good luck. This always freaked out the white servers, but Traci’s behavior never fazed me. Thanks to my mother, I was used to loud, bossy Asian women with bizarre habits and a tendency to gesture while holding sharp cutlery. I liked to think Traci was fond of me as well.
“Half Asian better than no Asian,” she often said.
Once a year around Chinese New Year, Traci would hop into her red Camaro and make a pilgrimage to San Francisco. She would return in a week or two with a fresh haircut and a car jammed full of treasures. Deliveries of even heavier items would come during the following weeks. One time, she brought back red and gold Imperial-style wall hangings for the dining room, and giant wooden lion statues with balls in their opened mouths for the front entrance. Another time, she ordered red and gold Chinese style uniforms for all the servers to wear.
Most of the servers were women with thick Midwestern builds, and they all had great difficulty cramming themselves into the slim Chinese style dresses. The collars were too tight around their chubby necks, and the sleeves pinched their arms like sausage ends. They had to cut the slits on the sides of the slim skirts higher so they could move their heavy legs, and their breasts and tummies bulged out in the most embarrassing way.
“No one can squeeze into those dresses,” they complained.
“Not so,” Traci said. Then she tossed me the red polyester uniform she had bought for herself and yelled, “Put on.”
I walked past the beaded curtain into the ladies room shaking my head. For as long as I could remember, I was always swimming in the clothes I bought off the rack. After all, I was a weird shape—too long in the arms and legs, too short in the torso. My shoulders were too big, and my hips were too small. But when I pulled the dress over my head and looked in the mirror, I almost passed out. That cheap little Chinese waitress uniform fit me like it had been custom-made. Then it dawned on me that perhaps I wasn’t such a physical mutant after all. Why, there was a whole world of people out there who were built just like me.

And they all lived in San Francisco.

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