String theory predicts that beyond the three dimensions we live in (plus the fourth dimension of time) there are at least six more unseen dimensions—curled up, imperceptibly small, yet all the while present in our reality. I still don’t understand string theory, but the idea of invisible dimensions has stayed with me for years, especially as I reflect on the experience of diverse communities in the USA. I remember a day strolling down Queens Boulevard and thinking that, although many in my neighborhood lived a liminal immigrant existence, someone from a dominant culture wouldn’t be able to access the extra dimensions of Rego Park the way each of us did: here was the Cantonese bakery where the lady boss gave me immigration and dating advice (and her secret menu), and here was the Chinese laundromat where a visit meant more than a commercial transaction, a time for the owner and me to express, through our eyes and our Mandarin greetings, that sometimes we missed our motherlands.
“On the Echoing Green” is my attempt to affirm and explore these hidden dimensions without unfurling them to be absorbed into the dominant narrative. The anxieties of Curie and her Green Card-hopeful friends seem to remain hidden from mainstream perspectives of the American dream, yet they exist all the same. And in their own twisted dimension, the characters find the same joy in communion, the same sorrow in parting, that anyone else in the known dimensions would.
I also wanted to play with the idea of storytelling itself. When was the last time you listened to a story because it taught you how to survive? In a way, that happens here, and I wanted to return to a communal era of storytelling, to when we drew on caves to warn each other of threats, to encourage each other with visions of promised lands, to give each other tips to survive in a harsh world.
One last thing I want to mention is how character agency plays out in marginalized narratives. I used to think my characters, powerless under the unpredictable forces of immigration law and international relations, were waves crashing onto shores at the whims of the winds and the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon. But during the editorial process, I became more attuned to the many choices they consciously made despite their predicament. My characters were stubbornly affirming life even though I had given them reasons to despair. They remembered that waves also transfer energy from one place to another, had shared this energy with the great sea that was their community, and as a result, had found their own sense of marginalized joy. While I don’t think BIPOC writers should feel a need to write “joyful” or “not too depressing” stories, I’m glad I could help my characters memorialize their moment of respite, to prove to them that it was real.