My mother passed away in November 2020 at the age of 77 in Colorado. Her life in China was so tragic, and it took me time to write about her life and death because I had to confront the complex feelings and meaning of her legacy.
I loved my mother for her kind and gentle soul. She was meek, although often in ways I did not understand: bulliable, submissive, and conflict-averse. Her interactions with Chinese Communist Party officials were characterized by obedience and tolerance of their inhumane treatment of people like herself. I am haunted by a childhood memory of when she got on her knees and begged a CCP official for a raise at her factory job. She sacrificed her dignity only to be cruelly denied.
My mother’s legacy is one of defiance. It began with a cry that defied death, lived through compassion that defied pain, and endures in me.
I used to assume I was entirely my father’s child. He was a fighter whose strength was like the factory steel he helped produce: firm, resilient, and tough. I spent my life assuming that my defiant nature was the product of my father. Now I am not so sure.
In an unremarkable village in Penshan County, Sichuan Province, China, a…
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