“So what’s it like growing up in Las Vegas?”
I’ve encountered this question in every new place I’ve lived: Boston, now California. I know what people are looking for in my answer.
“Well, you’re not 21 your whole life,” I’ll say as a nod to what Vegas stands for. Sometimes I’ll bring up other things — shows, food, nightlife — but the Strip is not really my experience of my hometown. These are just responses I’ve crafted for small laughs during small talk.
How can you succinctly capture the setting of your first wins and losses, friendships and heartbreaks?
I’ve spent 4 years not really figuring it out. I opt for dry irony rather than heartfelt anecdotes. Now that I’ve integrated into spaces with far more social and economic abundance, I speak of Las Vegas with a self-deprecating tone.
After all, it’s a place that is hard to defend when I am in high-powered places like California or Boston. My high school graduating class had over 700 students and the average ACT score was 14. The strip malls were built 3000 miles away from any semblance of New England charm. The summers are hellishly hot and the winters are cold and biting. Only an ecologist could look at the desert and see a thriving ecosystem. Making my city the butt of my jokes feels easier than defending it.
Secretly, the history of my life is a love letter to the desert.
Las Vegas is among the most ethnically diverse areas in the entire country. The Strip creates a uniquely service-oriented local economy, which draws a workforce from all over the world. My high school potlucks were rich and varied in cuisine and culture. My friends and I gorged ourselves on homemade hummus and pita, horchata, dumplings, lumpia, stuffed grape leaves, and more. At debate tournaments, I stood watch by my friend as she prayed the customary 5 times a day. My parents made friends with other Chinese families, and their kids grew up together in the desert valley.
I was privileged to have classmates who shared stories from their homelands and histories with me. I’ve been pro-Palestine since I was 14 (before I even really knew that was probably the right side of history to be on), not because of some innate worldliness, but because my friends were the hardworking children of hardworking immigrants.
Besides my peers, my teachers showed me commitment to mission. I was educated by people I have always thought were too smart to be teaching at some shitty high school in Las Vegas. I had a physics teacher whose classes surpassed any college lecture in clarity and effectiveness. On multiple occasions I heard students say that he single-handedly converted them from potential dropouts into pursuing a BS in physics from UNLV. My world history teacher had a PhD and could easily have been a professor, but would always laugh and say that teaching at Green Valley High School gave her the opportunity to “make a bigger impact.” Las Vegas is where I encountered the superheroic love that goes into teaching students that others would have written off.
Proof of my family’s story literally makes up this city. My friends affectionately call a popular Chinatown plaza the “Papa Liu Plaza” as a cheeky nod to my father’s work. My parents are architects, another mundane fact that unexpectedly delighted my college classmates. This city is sprinkled with small pieces of their art form — a bank here, a shopping center there.
I know that Las Vegas is glitzy and unserious when I am meeting someone new. It is also the place where I grew into myself. How can I palatably package something real and representative into a casual conversation? People aren’t asking that question so I can tell them that I owe every ounce of the good in my body to Sin City.
So I just say:
Well, you’re not 21 your whole life [laugh]. I live like a 20 minute drive from the Strip, so my family would go there to watch shows and eat!
You know how children are allowed in casinos in Vegas? The smell of them — yeah, like cigarettes and carpet — is actually very nostalgic for me.
I thought my entire life that it was normal to have slot machines in airports until someone pointed out that it’s just a Vegas thing.