Nancy Hua was originally from China and lived in a close-knit community with her parents and grandparents. At the age of 15, she and her parents left almost everything behind and moved to Flushing, NY, USA in search of a better life. Although Nancy was skeptical and unhappy with the initial move, ten years later as she says her story she says she enjoys America now while maintaining some key rituals and traditions from her Chinese culture.

The Good Ol’ Days

We lived in a very rural neighborhood, like in the countryside I suppose you can say. It was very hot; there was a lot of the rice patties. So we lived in a house and when you drive you could pass by the rice patties. But you know, like very close to nature, not like here.

I miss the motorcycles and the bicycles. Getting around in China, everyone’s a crazy driver but you can walk to most places, or in my village you can. Every child in China has ridden in a motorcycle.

Why I’m Here

It was more my parents’ decision than mine. I wasn’t that happy. I was already in school. I didn’t want to start all over.

The Journey & First Impressions

A lot of the stuff from my room I didn’t bring because there wasn’t enough space. So I didn’t really bring much of anything.

I thought I would be kind of miserable. I thought it was going to be a lot of white people and not a lot of Chinese people like me. I thought that in the city a lot of things would be expensive and people won’t talk to you like how we did in our village.

Relearning the ABCs

I just chose my English name here. My name is Sui Ying. But when I came to America I could choose a nickname in English and I chose Nancy.

And even though we learned English in school, we don’t really take it that seriously. It’s just like a second language.

My classmates didn’t really speak to me because I couldn’t speak to them.

Here I think the teachers are more understanding. In China they are like more strict than your parents.

Transition and Assimilation

When I first came here I had a very Chinese accent and people would ask me to repeat what I said and they’d always ask me “Are you from China?” And some of them would say “Are you Korean? Are you Japanese?” And then I would be kind of offended because I’m clearly Chinese but I think that’s just because when I first came here they don’t know me.

After a while, this place is okay because in some sense you have a lot of freedom here because you can go places on your own – public transportation – you can go with your friends. Here there’s a lot of things to see and here you can do it by yourself. You don’t need to rely on anyone else.

We celebrate Chinese New Year still. We go to the Buddhist temple and we pray for good luck in the new year.

I speak Cantonese Chinese at home. I still have to speak to my parents in Chinese. If anything I lose a lot of the writing memory because I haven’t written in Chinese in a while. But because my parents’ English isn’t so good, I had to speak both Cantonese and English.

Food

There’s a lot of Chinese supermarkets so food didn’t really change. Mostly we eat rice every day so the dishes here are also the same because my parents make it also the same. With the rice, we have a lot of choi, it’s like a vegetable, we eat like other meat, fish, frogs, snakes, and lobster.

Dimsum is a tradition of how we pass the afternoon. They roll the carts with all the dimsum dishes by you and you just pick what you want. There’s one called phoenix feet but it’s basically chicken feet but it’s dyed red.

China vs. United States

America is a very big place full of strangers that you don’t know but there is a lot of opportunities there because you can do anything you want.

In China there’s more expected roles for you to go into. Like a lot of the men, they go into business. And the women, they’ll go into housework or like banking. Like there’s a kind of differentiation between what a woman does and what a man does. Here I don’t feel like that’s the case.

Flushing

I think it’s become more commercialized. It almost looks like they’re trying to mimic Manhattan. Maybe it’s like the lights, the more people seem to be moving in, there’s more hotels in Flushing than when I first came here, so there seems to be a lot more people now.

What Could Have Happened

If I didn’t move here, my life would be like my cousin in China right now. She is already married and has kids and maybe I would have a different job. I’d probably still be living with my parents because my family lives very close together. And I would probably be less independent than I were now.

To Infinity and Beyond

I think it would be easier for my future kids because if they are born here they have the security of knowing that they’re a citizen here and they grew up with the culture already so they don’t have to learn to be part of a different culture and kind of miss the old culture.

I would like to maybe own my own house here. I don’t know if I’m going to maybe find someone here or find someone in China. Most likely they would have to be Chinese or Chinese and American because they would understand my culture better and better interact with my parents.

Now

I still think I’m Chinese more than American. Maybe it’s because I came here when I was a little bit older I still think that China is where I grew up so that’s like my home and this is America, where I am living right now. Where you were born, where you grew up in is your home.