THE ETHNICALLY AMBIGUOUS WRESTLER
He’s half-Chinese, a quarter Samoan, a quarter Italian, thanks for asking. Wikipedia says he’s got an eighth Cherokee in there somewhere, but it was the first he’d heard of it.
The native piece probably stemmed from an earl gimmick as The Navajo Warrior. He wore the headdress, the war paint, did the skipping dance around the perimeter of the ring while fans chanted oh-oh-oooh and chopped their hands, equal parts in tribute and racist.
He played an Arab terrorist next. Grew a beard, wore a white dish towel around his head, tied with a strip of black cloth. Spoke gibberish and ended it with Allah! to make the fans boo.
When he played Japanese, they wanted to paint tattoo symbols on his chest, and he said he’d commit. Got the tattoos for real, that he understood to mean, Love. Respect. War.
He had to wear a shirt over them when he was recast as an Italian playboy.
He thinks, after retirement, he’ll call on these experiences and fake that he speaks another language wherever he goes. Never let on he was a wrestler.
He thinks that will be good. To have one name and to tell it to no one. To answer to no one at all.
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Michael Chin