Juliana Chang

Surprise yourself when your first thought is that she looks beautiful. When the little voice in your head starts asking if she’s more beautiful than you, get off Facebook for the day and write your research paper. Spend the rest of the night wondering about the answer anyway.

You wake up in the middle of the night with his sleeping ankles curled under yours and wonder if the second time around will be the last.

I wonder if these feelings of resentment and shame were what my parents had pictured when they first made the decision to rename our family. Were they excited by the prospect of a new life in the Western world, picking out newfangled names like jelly beans in the candy store, rolling each one around their mouth, feeling the way its sounds melted onto their tongue?