I Want to Talk About Uncle Wallace: Against Chinese American Stoicism (Exclusive)

My family didn't talk about my father's abuse. Now I'm bringing our secrets into the sun

When my uncle Wallace died, I wanted flowers. I wanted cards with condolences in frou-frou cursive fonts, and clumsy hugs and all the other kindnesses I generally avoid. Most of all, I wanted to talk about my 108-year-old grandmother’s favorite son.

Visiting their Bay Area home, I once saw Waipo kneel on the floor, back when she was a spry 90-something, and mend a hole in his sock without asking him to take it off. If the Tohono O’odham have a word for the gray of hair no longer black, yet not pure white, thrifty Chinese Americans like my family should probably have a word for the gray of socks no longer white, yet not thrown away. Watching Waipo bent over my uncle’s foot, sewing, I could only imagine how long it’d been since he’d hit Target to refresh his supply.

My husband and kid had already listened to all my Uncle Wallace stories. So, I posted a vague death announcement to Facebook and read the responses. “Don’t talk about it,” my mom had warned. “We’re not telling Waipo.”

Great, I thought. Now I’m Awkwafina. They’re The Farewell-ing me. The post didn’t even use his name.

It’s no secret that Chinese Americans can be stoic to a fault. When I visit the doctor, my husband reminds me, “Actually tell them what hurts.” Yeah, well, I’ll try, okay? It’s not that I’m so Buddhist I dismiss pain as integral to living, or so Confucian I won’t voice individual needs. Silent endurance is simply a habit I picked up from my relatives — who are, indeed, Buddhists and Confucians. And Texans. 

While my mom taught me Mandarin, my dad, hailing from the Lone Star State, taught me to shoot a Dr. Pepper can off a log. He also taught me not to cry. I’m not saying he showed me how to calm myself with mindfulness or meditation: I’m saying he trained me not to cry in the first place, like spraying a puppy in the face with water every time it barks.

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Perhaps this lack of discernible emotion came in handy in his line of work (military intelligence) but it made me a weird kid. Picture a roomful of girls bawling their eyes out over Charlotte’s Web while one simply blinks at the TV. Blink. Blink.

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Before losing Uncle Wallace, I lost my father. I was 36, and no, he didn’t die: He made a decision. “Go to therapy with me, Loyd,” I implored, “and you can be part of your grandkid’s life.” I never saw him again.

Yes, my dad was a one-L Loyd. Most have two — Lloyd — but my father just had the one, because after his birth, his mother was in no condition to hold a pen. “Lloyd,” she dictated.

“Floyd?” confirmed the nurse filling out the birth certificate.

“Not Floyd. Lloyd, no F.”

The nurse scratched out the F and left the room.

But Loyd’s name wasn’t his only oddity. He spoke 18 dialects of various languages, rode motorcycles, fixed radios by hand. He stood at 6-foot-2, yet was nimble. One of my fonder memories involves watching a cop scream up at him as he scaled a stone tower without ropes. Once, he was my hero. Then I grew up, moved to California and, driving across the Bay Bridge, had a flashback.

As a writer, I relate flashbacks to analepsis — interjected scenes that rewind time. They’re hard to pull off. Often, they disrupt the flow so the narrative loses momentum. But when I flashed back to Loyd’s abuse, I gained momentum. My foot grew heavy on the gas as I hurtled from Oakland into San Francisco, where the I-80 spat me out on Fremont Street.

I pulled to the curb disoriented, still seeing Loyd’s face. The memory was not new; just crisply re-contextualized, like the figurative experience of really seeing someone “for the first time.” Loyd was a hero but also a villain. Later, back home in Oakland, I would cuss out my mom for the first and only time, over the phone, when she initially contradicted my recounting — and she’d hang up on me. But in that moment, cars honking, cyclists whizzing by, I did something that had never before come so naturally. I cried.

In the first stanza of his famous poem, “The Flower,” Robert Creeley compares tensions to flowers growing in a forest where nobody goes. It’s an extraordinary image that’s stuck with me. Americans give flowers to celebrate. And mourn. But for many survivors, flowers from family are more like Creeley’s: self-enclosed. Imperceptible. Blossoming into wounds. Carpeting the forest floor.

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Research indicates talking openly softens survivors’ grief and trauma. After my uncle died and I invited my Facebook friends into my forest, their outpouring buoyed me. And over the years, apprehensive disclosures about my father have invited similar comfort. “I’m sorry that happened.” “Is that why you always called him ‘Loyd’ instead of ‘Dad’ and he never met your child?” “Is that why you stopped dating men for so long?” (Actually, no. I was just too busy dating women!)

Friends’ acknowledgment of Loyd’s mental illness has helped me overcome his gaslighting. “He was a fascinating guy — but bat---t crazy,” they say, “wandering into the living room in his underwear to rant about Big Brother, when he used to be Big Brother!” More than one person has apologized for not realizing what was going on — as though a man who kept secrets for the U.S. government would be careless enough to get caught — and their unwarranted guilt is a kindness, too.

Family discussions, on the other hand, go like this:

“Need money?”

“No.”

“What grade is Adrian in now?”

“Ninth.”

“Wait, by ‘vegetarian,’ you mean even pork?”

Our questions are transactional, not deeply personal. Our support comes in the form of money, food, joking around. Don’t get it twisted, though: we love one another. Sometimes, I envision each one of us bending over another’s stockinged foot. We are judicious with our sewing — neat, efficient, careful not to prick the skin. We never discuss the hole in the sock; just get in, mend it and get out.

That’s where writing comes in. In my books, family members make bold, cathartic proclamations. They embrace. They wander into the woods, pulling flowers up by the roots to watch them wither. Yet, the characters are vaguely familiar, because I adore my Buddhists, Confucians and Texans every bit as fervently as 108-year-old Waipo adores her favorite son, Wallace — who has been traveling abroad for a very long time.

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I hope they understand. I hope they recognize, too, that spilling family secrets in an essay like this isn’t carelessness — only Newton’s law. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction, and long ago, my dad commandeered my story. So, stoic families, be forewarned: you can train a dog into stunned silence with a spray bottle, but eft alone in the house, the dog may start growling. Its ears may prick up as it suddenly realizes its vulnerability, its pain, its own voice. And then, your dog may make a ruckus. It may bark so loud the whole block hears.

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