Shanghai

1935-ish

Pearly Liu, my mother’s mother, born close enough to Shanghai that her mother tongue was Shanghainese. Born close enough to 1921 that that is the year we landed on, or the year that Immigration landed on. I knew her as a tiny woman with petal smooth skin, hats always - took personal offense to having her head touched. I knew that smile so well, but never knew the woman behind the smile. Not really. Beyond the decades between us, I hold the most grief over the loss of identity and history through the loss of language. A product of survival by the name of assimilation, my grasp of my ancestral tongue will always feel broken. I couldn’t shape the questions I had always desired to ask, nor could she twist her tongue to provide the answers. Maybe it was for the best. My mother knew, without ever being told, never to ask Pearly about her past—a past punctuated by war and loss. I didn’t inherit that restraint.