Immigration Story
Jack Kern
February 15, 2016
Rosenblum Seminar 2
My family’s immigration history
My family’s history is pretty typical for a white suburban family currently residing on Long Island. More specifically, my family is from Manhasset on Long Island. Manhasset is a town located in Nassau County about five miles from Queens, and was settled as early as 1680. My ethnic makeup consists of German, Italian, English, and Irish roots. With such a large extended family on my mother’s side and a relatively smaller family on my father’s side, you may think I know more about my mother’s side. On the contrary, I know more about my dad’s side because of my proximity to my father’s family. My mother’s family is spread out around the country, but is mostly in Florida while my father’s family still for the most part lives in New York.
Some of my earliest memories are being in my grandparent’s house. My grandfather used to sit in his chair and watch the news, sometimes on mute, while my grandmother would talk to my father. My grandfather was a military man, very stoic, but at the same time affable. He was a Commander in the Navy with an incredible career. He served in World War 2 and Korea on aircraft carriers. He was an original Seabee, or the United States Naval Construction Forces. The word Seabee comes from the initials “CB,” which stands for construction battalion. After the war he continued working on other projects, such as the Whitestone Bridge. He died when I was very young, around five or six, and he never told any stories from his past. However, even though my grandmother passed away five years later, she was the same. She did not speak about her past either. My grandmother was very religious, and one of sixteen children. Later I found out a few more details of her past, unbeknownst to most of the family during her lifetime, however it is sort of a “family secret” so I will withhold the details. Because she was very secretive about it, I’m sure it burdened her throughout her life. Despite her past and a difficult upbringing, she ended up moving to Washington D.C. where she became a secretary and met my grandfather, who was working at the time. Before my grandfather was a decorated member of the military, he started out as an engineer during the Great Depression, and was the only one in his college class to get a job thanks to FDR’s Works Progress Administration.
I know much less about my mother’s family, simply because I was not as close with them. My grandfather was a lawyer and my grandmother was a housewife. When my grandfather died when my mother was only 11, my uncle took over the family business. My grandmother was very Irish, and an active, energetic and loving woman. The business my uncle took over was very successful when he took over, and became even more successful up until today. Like my father’s parents, my mother’s mom did not speak too seriously of her past either.
My ethnic background is mainly Western European. My father’s side is German and Italian from the regions of Bavaria in Germany and the Molise in Italy. On my mother’s side I’m from Galway in Ireland, the Rhine region in Germany, and I supposedly have some English roots on her side as well.
Now, how did my ancestors arrive in America? That is a good question that I don’t have an exact answer too. My aunt has done countless hours of research into my family’s history, and I’ve learned a few pieces of information about my family’s past. On my mother’s side, the first Hyer (my mother’s maiden name) was born Henry Hyer in New York in 1825. We speculate that he was the first member of my family born in America, and that his parents were immigrants. My father’s family came over in the middle of the nineteenth century on his father’s side and settled around Reading, Pennsylvania and worked in railroads. My father’s mother side came to Pennsylvania a little later in the century. I have a few interesting relatives, one of which was Richard Wagner. I even had multiple relatives who had fought for the union in the Civil War, at battles such as Appomattox and the Battle of Bull Run.
Clearly, my family’s history is very dense and scrambled and it is hard to tell exactly why all of them came to the United States exactly or even when they came over. I know that some of my mother’s family actually came over to avoid the potato famine. One of those relatives was coincidently one of the Civil War combatants, and was shot in the head.
I suppose all of my relatives had similar goals at greater economic opportunity and a better life, and I hope they achieved what they wanted in their lives. I’m sure they were at least relatively successful because my family has wonderful values and raised me very well, but I also know a lot can change over a few generations.
Growing up as an only child, there was not as much family tradition and almost no cultural tradition at all. I find it very strange when people derive such emotion and personal importance from their history and their culture, because I feel so distant from mine. I’m not saying I don’t understand why; it’s simply the fact that I’m unfamiliar with it. My ancestors have already been here for well over a hundred years and potentially two hundred. I do not feel German, Italian, English, or Irish – I am simply an American. In my hometown of Manhasset in the suburbs my friends mostly had similar feelings, however now that I am in college I’ve met all kinds of people from all walks of life that are incredibly passionate about their background and culture. I feel as though I’m missing an intrinsic and formative part of the human experience, one’s ancestors.
My Immigration Story
In response to questions about my identity, I invariably refer to myself as a recent immigrant from Hong Kong. I sometimes wonder how long the word “recent” will lose its effect, urging me to finally change this standard answer of mine.
Three years ago, I came to the United States only semi-willingly.
My family applied for immigration when I was only three years old, a fact unbeknownst to me until eleven years after that. It was done rather randomly. My aunt from my father’s side was the only relative living in the United States. She paid for the applications and did all the paper work in the hopes of getting all of us here. I still cannot figure out, even now, why she was so insistent that we come. She is a dictatorial person, so all the other family members just did whatever she commanded on them, without questions.
As the application took several years of processing, almost none of my family members remembered it. And then eleven years had passed. The application was approved.
After that, my aunt would call once in a while and promote to us how great America is, like a real-estate agent trying to reach sales quota before the imminent deadline. We did not think too much about the whole thing. We just went with what she said, and continued to do what is left to do to go to America.
Very soon, all the documents and actions were done; it was time to go.
Now, we were confused. We never actually thought about leaving where we were born and raised, until that moment that we needed to decide. As typical parents from Hong Kong, my dad, my mum and my aunt thought that sending their children overseas was a precious opportunity, and it would increase their chances of striving towards a bright prospect.
As children, my brother, sister, and I refused to leave a place we had planted a whole life of memories in. We strongly refused.
“Hong Kong is over, now that Britain abandoned it and China is devouring its liberty,” my father sighed about our once promising hometown, “You can get a better job if you got your education from overseas. People will look at you with greater respect.”
Sending children to receive overseas education is usually rich people’s plaything. Well-off parents would dump a bag of money to pay for their kids’ sky-high tuition as international students. Aware, my father thought it was a windfall that we now had a chance to get American education “in a cheap way.”
Unpersuaded by dad’s words, both my older siblings determinedly said they would not leave. My brother argued with my father that Hong Kong was just as great a city in its education and its future, and that he had no desire to run to another place. He continued his bachelor degree in Hong Kong, and my sister continued to pull all-nighters for the pre-university exam for Hong Kong, not with a second of considering the United States.
As for me, I did not have much an opinion, as a fourteen-year-old. Finally I nodded.
Though still hesitating, I was instilled with ideas by my parents over my “correct decision.” They also avoided my sibling’s disagreement with them from reaching to me.
Eventually, I left everything that belonged to (as well as defined) me — my friends, my language, my culture, my home, my parents, and came to the States alone. I remember being on the plane, surrounded by a cloud of melancholy, confused about what was next to come. That moment, I felt like I was not in control of anything of mine, not even my life.
On July 4th, 2012 night, as fireworks were sparkling in the night sky, and celebrative clamor probably suffusing the atmosphere above the land of America, I was as if on a lone planet. I stepped out the airport gate, and saw my aunt from afar. She was frowning, a portent I did not know was foreshadowing my stay with her family.
During the one year stay at her house, I was emotionally tested to which I never before imagined possible. I was extremely stressed. Therefore, my mother decided –– despite her old age and her not knowing any English –– to come to the States and take care of me. That was my struggle of pursuing what people referred to as “American Dream,” which is still as blurred and distant as a shooting star in the smog today. Will I ever catch it? Or should I ask, do I actually want to chase this fantasy anymore?
If time rewound, would I have assertively said no to my parents? I am still uncertain about having come to America. To this day, I still cannot figure out the pros and cons of being in either country. Coming to America, I feel like my life so far has only been a sketch by the adults’ decisions and designs. I really hope that some day, I could identify as somebody I become not without a fight.
I never felt comfortable talking about my immigration story. I have always been afraid that I would get responses like, “If you don’t want to be here, then leave.” I am not a hundred percent sure whether I want to be here or not, but it is absolutely true that I miss Hong Kong very much.
It has been three and a half years now. My vacillating mind is always the burden on my path to future. It kept me from being motivated to strive for what I want. Perhaps the experiences I will gain as I age will soon help me be single-minded in my future, and stop me from regretting what I missed or left behind. I should be resolute that my future is here. I need to clear my mind as soon as possible in order to move forward.
Nevertheless, I will never forget where I came from, and I will forever miss what I left behind, in a positive and nostalgic way.
