Lawrence Li, Period 6, 10/03/23

 Lawrence Li

Period 6

9/01/23

Modern Mythology 2024

Socio-political Consciousness

Growing up, I was a very naive and jerk kid who only wanted to play video games all day and I never really realized how difficult it was for my parents to come to the US and sacrifice so much just so me and my sibling can experience what they couldn't.  

My parents are first-generation immigrants who were born in China who came to the US to seek better opportunities in a new country.  Me and my older brother would be considered second-generation immigrants who are born in the US and have foreign-born parents.  When our parents would tell us stories about their struggles trying to learn the language while still trying to assimilate into western culture, I was always inattentive and afterwards would say “Can I play on my iPad now?”  

However, there has been a recent spike in the amount of hate crimes being committed on Asians such as an incident where an autistic asian kid was harassed on the S79 and another incident where an Asian family was harassed at their doorsteps and was beaten up by a troublesome family and even an incident where a grandma was literally set on fire in Manhattan, Chinatown.  These incidents really go to show how asian immigrants in general are still struggling to be accepted into society to this day.  These numerous incidents along with a couple films that I watched such as “Elemental” and “Joy Luck Club” really opened my eyes to how challenging it was for my parents to come to the US and struggle to make ends meet whilst still dealing with xenophobic hate crimes.

Now that I’m at that stage of life where I have to seriously think about the future, I could only feel grateful for how much my parents had to go through to give me this opportunity.  They had sacrificed so much for me so I mindlessly assumed that it was only fair for me to sacrifice even more and go hell and back to make them happy and proud.  Although this might not resonate with a lot of people, I talked with a lot of my friends about this topic and most of them also feel the urge to pay their parents back for everything they did for them as if they were an investment.  

This selfless perspective really placed a huge burden on me for the past couple of months and I’ve constantly refrained from expressing my worries to my parents thinking it was a stupid thought and that the idea that we must sacrifice our life for them is something to be expected of every child with parents who are first generation immigrants. 

Last week, I had a serious talk with my dad and I finally was able to express my concerns on how I was going to live my life and what he said lifted this huge burden I had been carrying almost my entire life.  He basically told me that parents would never want their kids to sacrifice their life for them and really hope their kids would never think or say anything like that.  Parents do everything they’re doing specifically so that we won’t have to.  From my experiences, I’ve always tried to live up to my parent’s expectations but I never realized that all they wanted was for me to be happy because I had always thought that they gave up on their dreams to have me and my brother, but in fact, me and my brother were the dream that they were pursuing.  

Looking back, I realize that I had made the assumption that my parents expected me to sacrifice my dreams and more to make them proud and live a lavish life but this assumption had only distorted my perception of what my parents truly wanted and I know not every situation would be the same for everyone and there are specifics that I’ll never truly understand, but I think it’s almost universal that our parents truly want us to be happy instead of dealing with the dilemma of wanting to be our true selves and chasing after our dreams while not letting our parents down.  All in all, I find myself these days feeling lighter and thinking that in the end, everything will turn out okay.