Conversations between native Asians and Asian Americans tend to be either short, so as to avoid any unnecessary confusion or elongated, in order to clarify something that may be confusing. The parents in Asian cultures possess a strong sense of pride. They do not want their children to know when things are not going well. They have a reverence for respect and silence. In America however, we are taught that open communication is often the most successful way to create lasting and meaningful relationships.

With these two varying ideas in mind it becomes easier to see that the Asian American is expected to understand and act accordingly for both. The problem or rather complexity involved is that the Asian American is able to respect and remain silent when appropriate, not because they actually find it useful or even respectful, but because they are able to acknowledge that their parents are used to another set of customs and that it is easier and less complicated for both parties to go by their rules. In another setting however, this Asian American is challenged to speak up when he/she finds something faulty. The intermingling of these two different ideals and the person who is forced to acknowledge both and to some extent camouflage into either world is the Asian American:

"The summer before I started high school he made me go with him to one of the new stores…My father, thinking it would be good for business, urged me to show them how well I spoke English, to make a display of it, to casually recite "some Shakespeare words."

I, his princely Hal. instead, and only part to spite him, I grunted my best Korean to the other men. I saw that if I just kept speaking the language of our work the customers didn't seem to see me. I wasn't there.

They didn't look at me. I was a comely shadow who didn't threaten them. I could even catch a rich old woman whose tight strand of pearls pinched in the sags of her neck whispering to her friend right behind me, "Oriental Jews."…