Dear Frank, Goodbye

Written from the perspective of Ruby while she is caring for her mother in Marysville and deciding to leave Frank.

Frank,

I don't know how I fooled myself into thinking I could put up with this, but here I am. Dealing with the aftermath of one of your mistakes, again. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but since I've been away, all the little things that I could simply push aside begin to add up.

You are obsessed with being like a white man. I know that your family defined itself through being immigration brokers and interpreters, professions that demand a certain level of “Americanization.” It was the Tapes coined the phrase, “Caucasian in all but features.” But you want to live the lifestyle of a rich white man so much that I wonder if you ever stop to remember the Chinese part of Chinese American.

At the start of our relationship, I guess I thought the strutting and posturing and cigar smoking was cute. I'd heard some rumors among the old folks in the San Francisco Chinatown that you were involved in shady dealings up north in Portland and Seattle, and that there had even been a trial. Some of the nastier ones said that you have no loyalty, that you hated your own people and would sell all of Chinatown down the river if it would help you get ahead. I dismissed what these old folks said, thinking that they were just jealous of your success, of your ability to move so easily between the white and Chinese world.

But now I know its the truth. You have no loyalty to me or our race. I also know that you're probably thinking of a million ways to absolve yourself of blame. I know that I'm not blameless myself. I too, am one of the lucky ones. I have the power of good English, education, and a white name to help me get through life. The difference is that I value my Chinese identity. I want to help Chinese Americans and our relatives abroad, not deport them. I don't see other Chinese Americans as a stepping stone into the white world, a stereotype for me to point at and say “look, I'm so much better than them.”

Frank, I don't want to be white, I want to be equal to whites. I don't want to fight to eat at their table if it means leaving bitterness in our wake. And I can't be with someone who doesn't share my values or doesn't value me. I think I might have married you for the wrong reasons and for that I'm sorry. We both treated each other like props but that's no reason for you to have hurt me so deeply. Maybe it's not really about race, in the end. I just hoped that maybe if you were true yourself, you could be true to me too.

I'll be staying in Marysville. Please don't try to see me.

- Ruby

Occidental Board Mission House for Chinese Girls (new location, the old was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake), similar to the Methodist mission house where Frank and Ruby met.