Who in your family immigrated? Which generation are you?
My parents will visit this week, in the narrow window during which they are not traveling elsewhere and both of my kids are home before going back to college. It will be harder to coordinate calendars hereafter, I realize–I have adult children! What a milestone! I knew it was coming, but it only hit me when Daughter got herself from Trim to Dublin to O’Hare to home all by herself, with luggage, all while I was asleep and at work. [vibrating astonished smiley emoji]
Son is about the age Ba was when he left Taiwan. He and Ma met in high school, in study group at church. They got engaged after he completed military service and undergrad, and she was partway through nursing school, and came to the United States for his graduate studies. They eventually landed in Evanston, Illinois for his PhD in civil engineering at Northwestern, and I was three when he graduated. We moved to Colorado when I was six, and they still live in the house where my sisters and I grew up.
What a different world it was in 1971. Imagine picking up and moving to the other side of the globe, to a country where you barely speak the language, where you have few if any people, and you can only connect with them through snail mail. No internet, no cable TV, analog everything. I suspect most readers of this blog lived and recall those times clearly. Still, remembering is also akin to distant imagining, because our current reality is so drastically different and we simply adapt to what is.
How brave my parents were to do all of that. How mutually trusting in each other, in their own ability to figure things out. And maybe also in the decency of their fellow humans? They recently told me a story of their friend who was stranded in Memphis on his way to grad school at Ole Miss, who was taken in by a stranger, fed and housed overnight, and delivered to the bus station the next morning, all without ever knowing his host’s name. A kind American man helping out a young Taiwanese student, with no expectation of anything in return. Can we imagine anything like that happening today?
What happens when we cannot solve everything ourselves? What if I were stranded somewhere in a foreign country, phone dead, language barrier tall and wide, plans all upended? What if the people I could find were also disconnected from the internet? I suspect we’d find our shared humanity pretty fast, as long as none of us were outright sadists or sociopaths. I imagine that though racism and other ills of humanity existed then just as they do now, MaBa found folks who showed kindness, generosity, and even curiosity. They made friends, connections, and a life.
55 years on, they can look back at a remarkably successful life in every way. Steady professions, completed degrees (Ma got her BSN from CU while I was in high school and ended her career as a clinical instructor for our local community college), three daughters married to amazing sons-in-law, three grandchildren, a wide and exuberant circle of friends, and a remarkably active retired lifestyle. This is the American Dream, no?
My sisters and I watched how hard they worked our whole lives. Our family practiced frugality in ways my friends could barely imagine. Sisters and I experienced both the generation and cultural gaps known by all immigrant parent/native born children families. I think we have all come to appreciate and admire how MaBa confidently instilled traditional Chinese values in us, while also fully embracing qualities of American culture that made us better in synergy. Our academic and extra-curricular standards were high, but only because we could meet them easily–expectations were set by our own potential, not in comparison to anyone else. Tigers my parents were not, by a long shot.
MaBa continue to serve as respected leaders of the Chinese community in the region. They are tribal elders now, and I get to 沾他们的光, ‘dip from their light’, in other words, benefit from their positive reputation. People respect me because they respect my parents. It’s a status I gain by their decades of engagement and contribution to helping Chinese people be seen and included in America.
Their story is so much deeper, richer, and more awesome than I can write on a random Sunday night. As I witness my own kids emerging into fully functional adulthood, it makes me reflect on all MaBa went through to get here today. Somehow my own journey through this life phase feels prosaic and unremarkable in comparison, maybe because my parents were always within reach? I could always call if I needed anything. They could always (and did) fly to my assistance in a crisis. They not only created a solid life for themselves; they laid the foundation for my, my sisters’, and our own kids’ advantages and successes. They have set a loving and selfless standard for ancestral legacy, one that I feel proud to uphold.
Thank you, MaBa, from the bottom of my heart. Can’t wait to see you both soon. And I will do better expressing my appreciation from now on. xo
Healing Through Connection 