A tale of two Fourth of July celebrations: American-born Chinese hold back while expats in Hong Kong party

American Independence Day can be a double-edged sword. While Americans living in Hong Kong pull out all the stops to remind themselves of home, for Asian immigrants to America celebrations are fraught with questions of identity, assimilation and belonging.

Tiffany Chang works in Washington as a statistician. Her parents met in Hong Kong before moving to the US in the 1970s. Recalling how she celebrated the day as a child growing up in Houston, she would "try to wear something red, white, and blue since most people at school would as well".

As a family, she says "fireworks were the only tradition". More often than not she would go to friends' parties and "hang out with their families … we would probably pick up something American like a hamburger or fried chicken."

Melinda Wong is also an American-born Chinese; she works as a real estate broker in California. Wong's family emigrated to America in the 1920s from what was then Canton. These days she celebrates the day with her family with a potluck barbecue before watching the fireworks.

But growing up, she remembers her grandparents didn't like to barbecue: there was no room in their apartment in San Francisco's Chinatown and, anyway, "they preferred Chinese food".

"However, they did like to watch the fireworks," she says, acknowledging the major similarity between Chinese and American celebrations.