At Christmas, My Parents Gave My Sister a New SUV—and Me Something That Changed How I Saw Everything

from Taiwan in the early nineties with almost nothing. They’d worked brutal hours—Dad in a warehouse, Mom cleaning houses—to save enough to open a small café in downtown Sacramento fifteen years ago. Chen’s Coffee & Bakery. It was their dream, their pride, the thing they’d sacrificed everything to build.

I grew up in the apartment above that café,continue reading …