Expressions Of Love And Care Growing Up With Immigrant Parents

Many immigrants come to America for the opportunities and resources that our country provides, and to provide a better life for their children. There are many challenges that come with moving to a new country. You have to adapt to a new culture where people might not be as accepting of your differences, you have to learn a new language and also make new friends. This is especially difficult for children who live both norms, going to an American school and leaning American norms while coming home to their native culture where your parents still practice your home country’s culture. In the United States, 15.2 million children live with at least one immigrant parent (Statistics About Immigrant Parents in the U.S). One of my friends at the University of Delaware is a child of immigrant parents. I was able to talk to her and she explained to me her experience with race, sticking to her cultural roots, and adapting to American culture.

My friend’s story is very unique and it has shaped her into the person she is today and will influence how she raises her kids. Her parents met in Singapore and were dating for 3 years when her Mother moved to NYC to attend college when she was 18 and her Father served for the Singapore military in Australia. He later moved to NYC to marry her Mother and start a life together in the US. Her father picked up a slight Australian accent and they both spoke English very well, and while they were clearly immigrants, people did not know how to label them.

Growing up American but having a strong Chinese culture at home was difficult for my friend. Her peers were ignorant to her culture and foods she was eating which made her insecure to introduce her “American” friends to her parents. She regularly ate her cultures foods in the home and felt that her friends wouldn’t want to try it or would judge what she was eating. Although I have never really experienced this, I have many other friends of different cultures who have. Another insecurity my friend had growing up was having her grandparents live with her. Grandparents living with their kin is not a part of my cultural norm or many of my friends so I understand why she would have felt this way. According to Maximiliane Szinoval, “when Asians immigrated to the United States, they brought with them their traditional culture, including the notion of filial piety and the idea of elderly people living with their adult children, particularly adult sons” (Szinovacz 1999). Because her grandparents lived with her, this influenced a stronger cultural tie because older people do not adapt as much as younger people. Lastly, my friend talked about Asian cultural norms, like taking your shoes off when you enter the house or not laying on your bed unless you are going to sleep. This is because “the Asian lifestyle at that time was centered around the floor. The tables were low, they sat on the floor to eat, sleep and do all their activities. That’s why it was so important to have clean and warm floors” (The Asian Custom of Removing Shoes at the Door). She was worried her friends would not respond well to these customs or respect them while they were in her home and she did not want to offend her grandparents.

The expression of love is something she find very different in American culture and Asian culture. She feels that her American friends are constantly told “I love you” by their parents or congratulated excessively on achievements, while she never really heard the phrase “I love you” form her parents, but that they expressed it in actions. “Acceptance for Asian immigrant parents is manifested through their continual, instrumental support rather than through verbal expressions or demonstrations of support, and children may come to understand these parenting behaviors as part of how their parents convey their love and acceptance” (Russell, Crockett, & Chao 2014 74). I also feel this way with my Italian parents, we do not say “I love you” all the time because I know that they love me from what they do for me.

My friend talked about growing up in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood and she knew she looked different than everyone else. She had her Asian friends from church and her family friends which those relationships she kept separate from her school friends. She liked having this separation because she knew that her Asian friends struggled with the same cultural differences that she did, and that her school friends would not understand because they don’t live it. Now that she has matured and so has her friends, in college she feels that her friend groups are not separated by cultural boundaries anymore. She feels that her college friends are very open about trying new things and educating themselves on her culture. They are eager to try new food and learn about her family’s culture. I have noticed this myself, when there are holidays coming up that only a certain culture celebrates, I find people around me curious about the holiday and wanting to be educated on that cultures customs. I am catholic and one of my friends is not so around Easter time my friend was asking me about Easter traditions and why we celebrate it.

My friend talks about some values she finds most important in her life and what she wants to pass down to the next generation of her family. Her family values hard work and dedication to succeed in life. Her parents sacrificed a lot for her and her siblings to have a better life than they did and she does not want to disappoint them. This is also true in my household, my parents work very hard to be able to provide for me and my sisters and to pay for our education. We work very hard in school so that we can make them proud and to be able to care for them when they need.

I asked my friend how she stays in touch with her cultural roots and keeps her sense of self identity. My family keeps our Italian culture by getting together on Sundays for dinner, celebrating important holidays together like Easter and Christmas Eve and sticking to the traditional Italian courses. My friend expressed that she too has Holidays that her family celebrates like Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival. Each holiday is centered around a certain tradition. For Chinese New Year she receives gifts from her grandparents. The Mid-Autumn Festival involves a hot-pot dinner where you father with family and cook everything in a pot of boiling soup/broth. The celebration also involves eating “moon cakes” which brings the whole family together. “Each year the festival takes place on the fifteenth day of the eight moon, in mid-autumn when the moon is most luminous, and is at the outset a harvest festival, a time when farmers gather crops and pray to the moon for a good season next year, and for protection and prosperity.. A family occasion as the Chinese believe the full moon symbolizes reunion; moon cakes are also known as ‘reunion cakes,’ a material metaphor embodying the occasion’s social relations” (Moon Cakes and the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival).

If people were more open-minded of other people’s race and culture, they would be more accepting of other people’s differences. Although every culture deals with different obstacles and no one faces the same challenges as each other, we essentially all struggle with issues in relationships because of different upbringings. It is important to stay open minded and continue to educate yourself on different cultures.