The Real Louis Vuitton
On counterfeit bags and American dreams
When my parents first immigrated to the United States, my dad worked as a Chinese takeout deliveryman. One night, he stood outside a public phone booth (when New York City still had them) for 10 full minutes in the rain, water seeping into his thin, peeling leather jacket, debating whether he should spend the 25 cents to call my mom to tell her he was going to be late coming home. He kept doing the math in his head: One quarter = two Chinese RMB. He couldn’t bear the thought of spending two RMB just to make a three-minute phone call.
In the first 10 years that my parents were in the United States, they did not go to the movies once. They rarely turned on the air conditioning or heat. My mom wore the same threadbare pajamas that she had gotten from China in the 1980s, the ruffled edges now sagging to create a zigzagged hem, as if some animal had been chewing on them. My dad wore the same Yankees cap and the same gray “I Survived a New York City Taxicab Ride!” T-shirt, which had holes under the armpits and beardlike fraying along the sides. Of course, neither he nor my mom had ever set foot inside a yellow cab. They were veterans of the underbelly subways of New York City.
In the 20 years that my parents were here, they had saved up enough money to pay off our condo in Queens, opened up and…
