The story of my family’s immigrant experience is mainly told through my mother and her side of the family. My mom and her family were born in Guyana. During my mom’s childhood and adolescence in Guyana, American culture was highly esteemed. My mom and her siblings loved to watch American movies and shows and my grandmother worked outside of Guyana in the Islands in order for my mom’s family to have a better life in the United States. When my mom was nineteen, she successfully moved from Guyana to New York City. There, she met who now is the father of my siblings and me. My father’s family did have a history of immigration also, but it was not as recent as the immigration history of my mother’s family. My dad is what I would call “Mediterranean- American”. His mom’s side of the family is Italian and his father is Greek. The most recent history of immigration in my father’s family was when my father’s grandmother (my great-grandmother) moved from Italy to the United States.
My parents’ contrasting cultures caused our family to be less based upon our ethnicity and cultures than most families in New York City. But even when culture is an influence on my life, the culture is usually my mother’s culture, due to my father rarely, if ever, being raised upon culture. My mom expresses her West Indian culture best through the food that she makes occasionally, such as roti, curry chicken and a breakfast called “bakes”. This is due to her making food for her family ever since she was about twelve years old.
Although I am not an immigrant myself, immigration did have an effect on my life. A lot of immigrants, including West Indians, especially want their children to succeed. This causes the immigrants to mainly want their children to be doctors, nurses and engineers, practical careers in the science/medical field. They see success and a stable income as more important than having a dream career, and I do not truly blame them for it. My mom and her family, as well as my childhood acquaintance’s older sister, Amanata, who is also Guyanese, advised me to have a career that would provide a steady income (in Amanata’s case, Physical Therapy). I felt bad at that time for being undecided about my future plans even though I know some people my age who are undecided as well. Before I was undecided, the main career I wanted was just to be a creative writer. That was, until I realized that it would be better to keep writing as something to do during my spare time, or at least as a side job, rather than a full-time career.
Otherwise than food and future plans, I have not really been affected by West Indian culture. Despite the assumption from Caribbean parents that it was my Guyanese mom who caused me to succeed in school, it was primarily my own motivation that caused me to do well in school. This was not to say that my mother did not care about my education, because she did care about my education a lot. It was just that my mom’s pressure was extra motivation for me to do well rather than the sole motivation.
But despite cooking Caribbean food at times and being pragmatic like most Caribbean parents are like, my mom is far from the stereotypical Caribbean parent. She picks Michael Jackson over reggae, and staying at home on Labor Day rather than going to the Labor Day parade. As well, my mom never visited Guyana after moving to the States, since she did not really like it that much. When I was about eleven or twelve, I wanted to visit my mom’s home country, Guyana, just to see what it is like. My curiosity about my mom’s home country disappeared, being replaced with my dream of going to Paris someday, hopefully as a place to study abroad.
Although my biggest dream at this moment is to visit Paris, there are some places that I enjoy going to in New York City. One of the places that my family loved to visit when I was young was the Bronx Zoo. It was unlike school trips to the Bronx Zoo in which there only was a quick tour and only the popular animals were seen. We spent almost all day there and used the zoo transportation such as the Zoo Shuttle and the Skyfari to make sure that almost all of the whole zoo was seen. Every time the Bronx Zoo is mentioned it brings back positive memories of my childhood.
