93 Quotes by Eric Liu

Why does an iPhone cost only a couple hundred dollars? Because, as the stage performer Mike Daisey depicted in an arresting one-man show called ‘The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,’ Apple’s shiniest products are made by a shadowy company in China called Foxconn.

There have been, in recent years, many Asian American pioneers in the public eye who’ve defied the condescendingly complimentary ‘model minority’ stereotype: actors like Lucy Liu, artists like Maya Lin, moguls like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. They are known, often admired.

Many smart folks seem to think that if you just get your metaphors and messages right, you’ll win. That if you start describing what you favor as a ‘moral value’ – ‘affordable health care is a moral value’ etc., – then you’ll appeal to red-state voters.

As it stands now, those of us who are lucky enough to be citizens by birth don’t have to do much. Very little is asked of us.

Conservatives forget that citizenship is more than a thing to withhold from immigrants. Progressives forget it’s more than a set of rights.

Much of our national debate proceeds as if China and America were locked in a zero-sum game in which one’s loss is precisely the other’s gain.

Six decades ago, as Mao’s Communists seized power, the question in Washington was, ‘Who lost China?’ Now, as his capitalist descendants stand astride the world stage and Washington worries about decline, it seems to be, ‘Who lost America?’

Sometimes when I listen to fellow progressives, I wonder if the only lesson we took away from the ’04 elections is that politics is a word game.

Throughout this country’s history there have of course been systematic efforts to create an official underclass.