First to fade were the names, then the faces, until she
couldn't be sure the people once called family ever really
existed. Sometimes, when she wandered through Chinatown, she wondered whether this middle-aged man or that young mother with the sullen girl was related to her. Relatives. Strangers. There was no way to know.
In this vivid, elegantly written debut, Jocelyn Lieu explores the risks of self-discovery. The characters in Potential Weapons lead bi-cultural lives, their ethnicity not obvious at first glance. What are you anyway? someone asks. But it is only when cultures clash, when memory is forced into the present moment, that this question can begin to be answered.
In the title story, Abi, a young Chinese American woman, attends a Klan rally, in protest, with her white mother. Once there, they are stripped of all "potential weapons," including her mother's cane. Diana visits the home of her lover's parents, Holocaust survivors: the mystery of cultural difference and the haunting music of Gulf War TV coverage permeate the encounter. Through a chance meeting in New York's Chinatown, Mar discovers her estranged Aunt Pearl, who turns out to be the family's most intriguing secret, a link to a past colored by the struggle to survive.
