Building a Life in New York
My father was born in Mainland China, and raised by a foster family. My paternal grandmother died in childbirth, and my paternal grandfather left before my father was even born. My father was raised by a friend of my grandmother, and grew up with limited schooling. As a teenager, and young adult, he herded cows and did miscellaneous farm-work. Finally, in 1974 he made it to Hong Kong after a series of very interesting events. While in Hong Kong, he made a living as a construction worker until he finally managed to get to America in the March of 1976. Living in San Francisco with his foster father’s cousin, he worked in a sweatshop for about two to three months until he finally moved to New York.
In New York City, my father lived with his foster mother’s younger sister for another two to three months. The conditions were horrible, but they couldn’t afford to live anywhere better. They weren’t even living in an apartment. My father was living in what should have been the storage area for a small shop. Needless to say, this was illegal, but they needed an affordable place to stay, and this was all they could get. By asking other relations, he found work at another sweatshop. However, my father soon found out that there were other places to live New York that were not small cramped storage areas. Finding a small two bedroom apartment, he leapt at the chance to live somewhere with functional lights and space to move.
Moving to the apartment opened up a new set of trouble. The location was absolutely horrible. It was on the highest floor, and the main door to the apartment building was easily opened. Drug addicts often frequented the apartment complex to use their illicit drugs, and often broke the windows along the stairs. Still, for my father and his aunt, it was a place to call home. Apartments tend to cost more than storage areas in shops, so my father had to find a better paying job. After going to a job-hunting agency, he found work as a cook in a small restaurant, where he worked for twelve to fifteen hours for six days a week.
Life in New York was fairly static for four years. His aunt moved out and went to San Francisco, but life for my father stayed the same. At least it did until he happened to meet a childhood friend at work. His friend had recently been married, and mentioned how his wife had a very attractive, single, younger sister in Hong Kong. My father did not have time to meet people in America because he had work, and on days he did not have work, he slept in to regain his strength. After much prodding from his best friend, my father flew back to Hong Kong in January 1981 to meet this young woman. After meeting, the two of them decided that they did not hate each other, so they decided to get married in late 1981. After getting back to America, things were going well until the apartment was broken into, and stripped clean. My mother, ever the optimist, essentially told him, “We lost a lot today, but we’re still alive, so let’s try build something for a family.” So with my mom working in a sweatshop, and my dad slaving away in a kitchen, they slowly turned the apartment somewhere safe enough for children. They transformed my father’s “bachelor pad” into a place that I still call home to this very day.
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