Caught two worlds i.c.u. how to#
Caught two worlds i.c.u. driver#

It’s a tough thing to lead in and out with along with finding a structure to hang it on.

Caught two worlds i.c.u. how to#

There’s also trying to find a flow where you have to figure out how to get so many years into one book. “I hate self-indulgence and I was super-tough about not wanting to do that. “In some way, it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to write about yourself,” he explained. Alvin Eng performing with his teenage band. And while he was passionate about getting his story out, Eng was more interested in grappling with the challenge of providing a platform of broad appeal versus ending up with a vanity project. Sports (the New York Knicks) and the arts (punk rock in particular) offered solace to Eng and his quest for an identity that is a strong narrative theme in this project that took nearly a decade to write in-between teaching gigs and performing myriad theatrical pieces. It was a reality Eng recounts about his 1970s childhood when that part of Queens was home to only a handful of Chinese families and where he found himself caught between American and Asian culture. Alvin Eng (red-striped shirt) with his family at the 1964 World’s Fair.(Photo courtesy of Alvin Eng)Īnd while Flushing represents the second-largest Chinese community behind Brooklyn Chinatown and ahead of Manhattan’s Chinatown as of the 2010 census, that demographic representation was not always the norm.

Caught two worlds i.c.u. driver#

A major driver in the story is the relationship between the parental duo, who were living two separate, but parallel lives with the intersection coming at the hand laundry. Chin Chinese Hand Laundries-one in Hoboken, one on East 86th Street in Manhattan and the third in Flushing, Queens. The Engs supported themselves running three Foo J. The youngest of five children, Eng was the result of an arranged marriage between his late parents, who he affectionately refers to as King Wah Eng and The Empress Mother. It’s certainly the case with Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond, playwright Alvin Eng’s account of growing up as a second-generation Asian-American in 1970s New York City.

Isabel Allende once said that a memoir is invitation into another person’s privacy. Playwright’s new memoir captures Chinese-American experience