"Chinaman's Chance," by Tai Dong Huai

If a family of a different race adopts you, how do you begin to think during the teen years about sensitive issues like identity? The narrator in this story is a young teen, a girl born in China adopted by an American family. Her adoptive mom teaches English to a Chinese woman who has come to the house for lessons. The physical details like hair, nose, and thin frame provide a context for something shared (“…this woman I share a country with”) but not necessarily embraced. It is when the narrator overhears the lesson in verb conjugation that the subtext of history and heritage illuminate irony in the moment. Read it here at Verbsap.