While I was growing up in Flushing, Queens, we socialized exclusively with other Chinese immigrants. I was forbidden to make contact with nonapproved, non-Chinese peers outside school. That was fine with me.

Growing up in America, I experienced two puberties. The first opened me up to the possibilities of adulthood. The second reinforced that for someone like me - an immigrant, a minority, an Asian-American - there were limits.

When I was growing up, I went to an Irish-Christian missionary school.

You’re a teenager. It’s all complicated.

Growing up on a mountain in Tennessee, I spent most of my childhood outside.

So, what did you take from school growing up,