" Lie to Americans. Tell them you were born during the San Francisco earthquake. Tell them your birth certificate and your parents were burned up in the fire. Don't report crimes; tell them we have no crimes and no poverty. Give a new name every time you get arrested; the ghosts won't recognize you. Pay the new immigrants twenty-five cents an hour and say we have no unemployment. And of course, tell them we're against communism. Ghosts have no memory anyways and poor eyesight. And the Han people won't be pinned down. "

― Maxine Hong Kingston , The Woman Warrior