My parents in China, before my dad left for the United States.
Immigration, like how the books portray the process, is not easy. It is not just the physical move that challenges a person’s capability to adapt. It is the fact that you are thrown into a new environment that really tests a person’s strength. The move brought my family into a completely new world with a different language, culture, and lifestyle. Gone were my mother’s family’s wealth and her status, and in place of them was her mundane and backbreaking job at a factory. Gone was my freedom to do whatever I wanted, and instead I was given the huge responsibility for taking care of my family.
As the eldest child in the family, the language barrier meant that I got the most responsibility to make sure everything in the family is flowing smoothly. Even in elementary school, I wrote checks and formal letters to agencies, translated for my relatives, and read the letters they get in the mail. The need for a translator was the main reason why I’ve retained the native language despite my years of living here. My siblings, on the other hand, have never had as much of a reason to retain Fuzhounese, and they have lost it little by little through the years. Even now, I act as translator between my siblings and my parents because neither group is fluent enough in the other language to communicate well.
Not only is the belief system here different from that of China, the culture is different as well. My mom, being more open-minded than my dad, has adapted some of the American ways and learned to accept the others. Sleepovers, friends, curfews, and styles of dress are all topics of heated debate within my household because we have two very conflicting opinions on these “American” matters. The little assimilation my parents have accomplished is also reflected on their political involvement. Because of our permanent resident status, we have never been able to vote on matters that affect us. My parents hear about the politics that the Chinese newspapers report about and the laws that my relatives in China talk about, which are their only two sources on the current events in China.
My mom and my siblings at my high school graduation.
Often times, I question why my parents made the move even though life was, in my opinion, good in China. It was only after asking them why they migrated that I realized that they had so much more opportunities here in the States than they did in China. Although he was leaving his wife and daughter behind, the promise of a better future for the family as a whole pushed my dad to make the move. My mother, on the other hand, was from a fairly well off family, but mom wanted to reunify our family once more.
Immigration is a physical move, but it challenges and trains a person’s adaptability. I am a mash of the two cultures that exist in my life and in my family. I may speak English flawlessly and I may act like the typical American teenager, but I can never forget those first moments of stepping off the plane into a vast land of possibilities. I will never forget that I am a true Chinese person and that I carry with me the experiences of an immigrant. I cannot disregard the fact that I, like many immigrants before me, have learned to fuse the American culture with my native culture in order to survive and succeed in this new place I call home.
