Well, you know, I grew up as an outsider, because I grew up in an Afro-American neighborhood, and I went to school in Chinatown. And so even though I had friends in both areas, I was always something of an outsider. In my own neighborhood, if we were playing war games and, again, this will date me I would serve as the all-purpose Oriental. I’d either be the Japanese that was getting killed, if we’re fighting World War II, or I’d be the Korean getting killed if we were fighting the Korean War.
Or, when I would go into Chinatown well, I went to a Catholic school. And so if my friends wanted to tell jokes that the nuns wouldn’t understand, my friends would tell the jokes in Chinese. But my parents didn’t speak Chinese at home, so I didn’t have enough Chinese to understand the jokes.
