When I first asked my mom for an interview, like I had expected, she refused and said:
“I am a lucky person. Since I was young, I have not struggled much. In China, your grandparents gave me everything I wanted. Here, your dad did everything for me. I haven’t been through hardships so why would you interview me?”
However, I knew this was untrue.
As a child, I would always find myself looking forward to the weekends. Most kids did as well, because weekends meant no school and probably fun time. However for me, it was the only chance I really got to interact with my mom. Since I could remember, my parents were always busy working. Everyday, my mom would wake me up and get me ready for school but that required no more than a couple “kali” meaning “hurry up” in Fujianese. After that, I would see her when I got home from school but she would still be working, making orders, cooking and cleaning.
However every Saturday, things were different. It was a tradition in our family to go shopping for groceries and then cook up a big dinner, where everyone would gather together and talk about anything that was on their mind. Often times this would mean hearing stories about my mom and dad’s childhood. As a kid, these stories were the highlights of the dinner because they were all so happy and allowed me to build connections with my parents. However as I grew up, I began to realize that those only made up a small portion of my parents’ full story, the rest of which they kept hidden.
My mom has always been a very optimistic person. In all my memories of her, she is always the one smiling through the hardest times. However, beneath that she has conquered many difficulties that have only made her stronger.
Entrance into TingJiang
TingJiang Streets
My mom, Rong Hua Zheng, was born on July 10, 1972 in a countryside village called TingJiang of Fuzhou, China. She is the youngest child, with two older brothers in a very average family. Her mother was a typical housewife, the job of most women at the time, and her father, a fortune teller. Back then, TingJiang was pretty much made up of all farmers. Therefore, men were valued above women because they could work. Despite this, my grandparents were actually overjoyed to have my mom, since others had told my grandpa that she would bring wealth to the family. This would become true, however, not from the beginning.
Last Family Picture
Sadly, my mom was born with a severe heart disease, which prevented her from living like a normal child.
“The hospital was more like my home. Often times I had to live there and grandma would come visit me when she wasn’t at home cleaning, cooking or farming. When I did go home, I would get sick again and grandpa would have to carry me back to the hospital in the middle of the night.”
In addition to having a whole lot of stress, this also meant that the family, which was not well-off then, had to cover for her massive medical bills.
Fortunately, under the care of my grandma, surgery and medications, my mom’s health started to improve greatly. Concurrently, so did the family’s economic condition. Over time, my grandpa was becoming better known in the village and more people began to hire him to go to their homes to look at the Feng-Shui. As a result of this, my mom’s childhood was very different from other kids living in the same village.
TingJiang was and still is an extremely poor village and even though there were schools, not many people made it past 5th grade. At the time, almost all families had over five kids so that there were more hands to work on the farms. Most of the time, there wasn’t even enough money to feed the whole family, let alone fund five children’s education. My mom on the other hand, not only went to school but was able to finish high school and land a stable job as a nurse in TingJiang’s top hospital. This was extremely rare and impressive, compared to everyone else in the village, which brought even more pride to her family.
Mom in China Before Immigrating
My mom’s story however is only the rare case.
“Because everyone was so poor then, life was unbearable. From what I can remember, everyone worked sunrise to sundown in the fields, growing rice, growing potatoes. My family was relatively better off and grandpa and grandma had to work.”
As a result, according to my mom, almost 80% of the people left for America, most of them illegally. This included my dad and both uncles, all by the age of 18.
“I remember coming home one day from school and finding grandma sitting in the kitchen re-reading a letter your uncle had sent about his journey to America. I saw her weeping loudly and it broke my heart.”
My mom, on the other hand, arrived on December 11, 1995, by plane, after being granted a visa. This visa was prepared by my Dad who had already arrived in America a couple years prior and was based on the intent to get married. However, there is a trick to this. Because my father came illegally, he was not a legal resident and could not send for my mom. Instead, he paid his cousin who was a citizen here to file it. Therefore, my mom was actually “supposed to” marry my Dad’s cousin. Back then, this was not a rare practice, considering the fact that most people leaving Fuzhou were smuggled through the borders.
Wedding Photo for Visa
After hearing about my mom’s life in China, I was really curious as to why she chose to move to America if her life was so good back home, but to my mom the answer is clear. While making the decision to come here, she had never once really considered how her life would change in America but instead, her only reason was to marry my dad.
My parents had met when they were kids, after my dad started working at my mom’s house. As my mom describes it with chuckles:
“We both had a crush on each other as kids. But then, as I grew older, I grew out of the crush. Your father however, still really liked me and your grandma loved him. So when I got my first boyfriend, your grandma was so persistent in getting me to marry your dad that she even banged her head against the wall.”
Means “Xiao” comes first
Even though my dad was not a citizen, in those times most people believed that America was a land of prosperity and money. Therefore, many families wanted to marry their daughters off to these “Americans,” including my grandma. My mom however never cared about this. In China, there is a Confucian principle called “Xiao” or in English, filial piety, which basically states that one should be grateful toward their parents and respect them. This, and her future husband were all she kept in mind. She said:
“To a Chinese woman, family is the most important. Wherever my family is, is where I should be.”
Therefore, after arriving for a little over a year, my parents were married.
Marriage Photos
Even though my mom did have to conquer many obstacles in her life, she was still a lot luckier than most immigrants. Before she came, my dad and uncles had already found homes and jobs in America. Therefore, she never had to worry about not having the essentials. In addition to that, most of the time Fujianese immigrants were faced with large amounts of debt, but my dad had already covered that for her. Instead, once she came, she was able to go to school to learn English and once in awhile do some work at factories, bakeries, and printing shops to earn some spending money.
However, despite all this, my mom was not happy at first.
“When I got off the plane, I hated America. People used to say America was a pot of gold and it was beautiful, but to me it was not. The people looked different, I could not understand what others were saying and I missed my family so so much.”
Before doing this, I never realized the sacrifices my mom made to come to America. Even though most of the time she acts as if it was only a little, I could not imagine myself going through the same thing. When my mom moved here she was only 23, but that was the last she saw of her mother. Other than simple phone calls every once in awhile, she never was able to go back. Even to this day, my mom refuses to talk much of her mother, because not being able to be a good daughter to her is one of her greatest regrets.
Now, after over 20 years of living in America, my mom has fully emerged herself into the American life. She has gotten her green card and citizenship through political asylum and can now speak broken, yet understandable English. In addition, she grew to love America.
Picture in New House
“America has been good to me. I have my family which I am so proud of and would not exchange for anything. I have my own house, my own company, and I get to go shopping whenever I want. I eat what I want to eat, buy what I want to buy. What more could I ask for?”
Despite talking about some pretty serious topics, one of the things that emerged through the interview was my mom’s optimism. She would constantly say, “I was lucky,” which she was actually, compared to many others.
Like my mom, many immigrant parents don’t reveal too much about their history because they don’t want to burden their children. For my parents, they have worked all their life, providing me and my siblings the life we have now. As a kid, I was jealous of others because they got to spend time with their parents. However, now that I’ve learned my mom story, I am grateful for what they have done for me.
At the end of the interview, my greatest takeaway is that everyone has stories, whether sad or happy. Nobody’s life is completely obstacle free and not everything goes the way you want it to. Therefore, it is the attitude that you take towards these hardships that guide your life. What my mom told me might not have been the complete truth since her definition to obstacles is much more severe, compared to children of this generation; however, at least she holds a positive attitude in moving forward with her life. To my understanding, it is not that she hasn’t been through hard times but that she has moved on and concealed it all with her ever existing beautiful smile.
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