Museum of Chinese in America

In this interview, Mirian Yau Oyola recounts her family’s migration from Guangdong, China to Panama and reminisces about her childhood growing up on a ranch and in a large Asian community in Panama. She chronicles her family’s eventual move to New York City, familial dynamics within a mixed family, the difficulties of cultural assimilation into American life with a Chinese stepmother, and the stark contrasts between life in Panama and America. Growing up in Brooklyn, she recalls how her neighbourhood was segregated by ethnicity down to the streets that they lived on, illegal child labor in Chinatown sweatshops, and a family scandal that created an irreconcilable rift. She recalls her involvement with the Chinatown YMCA, work as a youth counselor, and the waves of ethnic Chinese immigrants over the decades. Mirian reflects on the duality of her life being of mixed race (half Chinese and half Hispanic), the cultural expectations placed on her, her struggles with cultural identity, and the distinct emptiness she felt not being fully of either cultures. Mirian vividly recounts the day of September 11th, to which she was an eyewitness, and the confusion and mad scramble to reunite lost children to their parents that followed. She explains her patriotism and describes all the ways that she is proud. She recalls the fears that she felt for many of the children in Chinatown and surrounding neighborhoods in the aftermath of the events.