This doesn't happen very often, but every now and then I will read something and think, "This puts into words exactly what I have been thinking and feeling for most of my life." The first time was when I read the essays in "Are Women Human?" by Dorothy L. Sayers. This is the second time. As a member of a minority group everywhere in my country except among family or through the self-conscious effort to find other Asian Americans, I alternate between being conspicuous and vanishing, being stared at or looked through. Although the conditions may seem contradictory, they have in common the loss of control. In most instances, I am who others perceive me to be rather than how I perceive myself to be. Considered by the strong sense of individualism inherent in American society, the inability to define one's self is the greatest loss of liberty possible. We Americans believe in an heroic myth from the nineteenth century, whereby moving to the frontier gives a ...