The English language itself cannot truthfully render the emotions of the Asian-American experience. Because it bridges the area between two cultures, one language cannot fully express its complexities.
Words shackle one to the limited realm of a particular culture's past.
Asian-American literature and drama attempts to expand these confines by nestling in the midst of English, in italics, Asian words for which no appropriate translation exists. Though several authors have successfully represented the Asian-American experience through this technique of hodgepodge, none have managed to create a truly permanent language which can be relied upon to repeatedly symbolize it. Film then, is the ideal narrative medium in which to articulate a dual perspective. Thus, though I am pursuing a BFA in theater, Lifetimes is composed as a work for the cinema. A chronologically fractured narrative pulls together the strands of three seemingly disparate periods in one person's life.