In the two decades we’ve now been in this country, I can’t recall a single time that my family has so much as attempted to screen the Super Bowl, much less attended an actual sporting event. Of all the quintessentially American past-times we’ve adopted in the process of assimilation -slumber parties and barbecues, tree-trimming and movie nights -a fervent love of sport has never made the cut.
So there’s something amazing to me about the way all four of us gathered, stiff-backed and slack-jawed, to watch Nathan Chen skate last week. Something noteworthy about the collective intakes of breath at every takeoff, the audible gasps at each quad landed, and the regretful sighs at the short program that took him out of medal contention. Something solemn about the moment we turned to Vincent Zhou with equal parts quiet resignation and practiced resilience, pinning our deferred hopes to him while looking ahead to Beijing.
For all our supposed agnosticism towards sports, this was not the first time we’d been so thoroughly disappointed by a teenage athlete. In recent conversations with Asian-American friends, we commiserated on the old wound we seem to reopen every Winter Olympics -the painful subject of one Michelle Kwan.
“I was remembering today that when she lost in ’98 to Tara Lipinski, some major newspaper wrote ‘AMERICAN BEATS OUT KWAN’.” (It was MSNBC.)
“I’m still recovering from the trauma of her loss in ’02. It left permanent scars on my psyche that she never won gold.”
I find it hardly a coincidence that those events remain so firmly fixed in the collective memory of an entire community. Seeing Michelle Kwan on TV was perhaps the first time I became truly conscious of being different. I had learned by then that I wasn’t white and that people I met -teachers and classmates alike -would always want to know where I was “really” from. But to watch Michelle’s performances with particular pride was also to wonder why I felt so invested in her success.
Looking back, I think I fell in love not with Michelle but with what she represented -the possibility that I, too, could someday be seen not as Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, but as a consummate emissary of the United States. Even at the age of eight, it seemed a given that my acceptance in American society would be contingent upon a certain level of demonstrated achievement. Kwan’s moment in the spotlight brought the seductive promise of ultimate self-realization within reach, even as her eventual disappointments tore it away.
And so it was that Nathan’s Olympic debut this year inspired much more than simple admiration for his talent or awe at his commitment to a brutal sport. I unearthed the latent ambitions I’d had for Michelle as hastily as I’d laid them to rest, transferring them without reservation to a new idol. Though I was hardly alone in doing so, I can’t help but feel a degree of culpability for giving him any additional pressure. Whether he realized it or not, Nathan was carrying an entire generation of Asian American hopes and dreams on his eighteen-year-old shoulders. Is it really any wonder that the boy so lauded for his consistency before Pyeongchang couldn’t deliver on the Olympic stage? I imagine many first and second generation immigrants can empathize -there’s a certain kinship, after all, in shouldering the all-too-familiar burden of living up to someone else’s high expectations.
I keep thinking about one particular commercial that has made an appearance (in some form) during almost every Olympic broadcast I’ve seen throughout the years. Children all over the country -from farms, from small towns, from busy cities -watching these super-humans pursue their dreams and becoming newly inspired to achieve the impossible. What happens when a child is able to imagine every possibility? The magic of the Olympics, these montages would suggest, lies in its ability to encourage just that.
This year’s let-downs and missteps notwithstanding, I’m inclined to agree. From Mirai Nagasu and Karen Chen to the Shibutani siblings and Chloe Kim, each name passing the lips of an excited commentator was a thrilling reminder that it might in fact be possible to be two things at once, to balance multiple identities with pride and grace, and to be wholeheartedly embraced by the nation you call home.
We spend a lot of time these days talking about how representation isn’t enough. And on its own, in a vacuum, it certainly isn’t -not by a long shot.
But for a few days every four years, it gives me hope.