Historical Figures

“All this time, I’m going to school. But I told you I’m not good at school. I’m only good at one thing. Art. I like to draw cowboys and things like that. Even when I’m in China, they had a drawing class and the teacher would put a thing like a turnip on the blackboard. I wasn’t in that level, but I would draw the turnip anyway. So I’m at Ben Franklin Junior High and drawing all the posters for the school. The principal noticed, and he said he would try to get me a scholarship to art school. “What’s a scholarship?” I ask. “They give you money,” he says. So I get a scholarship to Otis for one summer. I’m the youngest one there. From the window I can see my father waiting for me across the street in Westlake Park. The other students are laughing all day. “Who’s that man? Who’s that funny Chinese man?” I don’t say that’s my father, but at lunch I go over there and he gives me a pork sandwhich from See Yuen.” (OGM, Tyrus Wong, page 190).