What does Hwang mean when she says, “children of immigrants are living paradoxes. We are the first generation and the last”?

Children of immigrants are the first to be born in a new country, and also the last to be born from people from their parents' country. They are the transition from one country to another.

femininity is conveyed through bernice's personality. she doesn't act how the other girls act and everyone thinks she is weird. she learns how to act in a way that was considered femininely appropriate at the time. she becomes so popular but her attempts to be liked end up backfiring when she is pressured into bobbing her hair. the author wrote that bernice cut off her cousin's hair in revenge for tricking her to cut her hair. this was the authors way of trying to change the way feminine is defined and the way women are expected to act.