Reading Between the Generations: Understanding our parents and ourselves
As the eldest daughter in a first-generation immigrant family, your role can translate into multiple ones. You’re the ‘baby of the family’ until your younger sibling comes along. Until then, your parents’ many firsts of parenthood are centered around you. But when another child enters the family, a crown of responsibilities gets placed on your head without you asking for it.
Suddenly, you were the ‘third parent’ helping your parents around the house and with the family. Growing up, you had to learn to be an adult while still a child.
Maybe you were the translator when your parents visited a bank or store.
Maybe you had to help them fill in official documents.
Maybe you were in charge of your siblings while your parents worked long hours or a second job.
Maybe you were in charge of making dinner during the week.
Maybe you had to put together tea and snacks when anyone visited.
Maybe it felt like you had different responsibilities from the eldest male cousins in the family.
Maybe you had to be the listening ear for your parents as they fretted about bills, relatives back home, or whether your younger sister had chickenpox or not.
Maybe you had to skip sleepovers because your parents didn’t know your friends' parents.
Whatever the role, the pressure to please your first-generation immigrant parents is universal. Every first-born child of immigrants has felt an inherent need to be a rock of support for their parents.
The Plurality of Immigrant Pressure
First and second-generation Asian Americans live under different pressures.
Growing up first-generation Asian American
Your first-generation parents came to America clutching suitcases with little belongings, and hope-filled hearts. They rebuilt their lives from scratch, and every penny earned counted towards the future this country could give them. Meanwhile, they had to assimilate into a culture that possibly clashed with what they knew.
And remember, some of our parents had to learn English after coming to America. It's not easy to think and feel in one language but communicate in another that you're trying to learn. Homesickness is a feeling in one language, and just a noun in another. Additionally, they had to learn new ways of doing things, all while passing off with the confidence of someone who's grown up here.
Growing up second-generation Asian American
While second-generation (children of first-generation immigrants) immigrants don’t have the same pressure, there is a different kind of pressure. You grow up under a cloud of expectations from your parents. While you can relate with your white friends who are also the eldest, you get the sense that your pressure stems from some fundamental belief in your parents. They seem to harbor a slight distrust of certain things about the West and constantly compare it to the country they left. But for you, the West is all you’ve known. You’ve visited your parents’ home country and it was certainly different, but the West is your home base. You need to fit the ‘good Asian daughter’ decorum of a world that only seems to make sense inside your home, while also finding social acceptance of ‘being American’ with your peers.
You are constantly reminded of your parents’ sacrifice of leaving their homeland to give you better opportunities and chances in life. You can’t fully grasp the gravity of what they gave up, but you know what’s at stake if you don’t meet their expectations: their disappointment in you.
When you ask them why you must deal with so much responsibility, the answer most often boils down to ‘Because you’re the eldest’; a short and simple phrase that carries so much weight within it.
Growing Up Too Fast
A result of having to be an adult when still a child is you feel an incongruence of sorts, as you become more self-aware. You suddenly mourn the childhood you never got to have thoroughly. Keeping your parents happy has now translated into a compelling urge to keep everyone around you happy.
You’re confused about what you want because, in the past, your parents (or maybe still do) dictated what they think is best.
It’s weird having to be an adult when you’re a child, and then growing into an adult only to have to heal your wounded inner child. This can take a lot of work, and it’s harder still if you live with your parents. You’re in the environment that has caused the confusion you're trying to grow out of. But give yourself credit for acknowledging it. Sometimes, acknowledgement is half the healing done.
Finding Your Space
If you feel isolated in carrying the weight of your role in your AANHPI family, you’re not alone. Let’s look at how much of the population of America consists of first-generation immigrants. According to the Center for Scholars & Storytellers, in 2021, 57% of Asian Americans are first-generation immigrants or born outside of America. This means there are many second-generation Asian Americans who are working through the same struggles as you.
With so many people in this country who were born outside it, our systems fall short of accepting our parents’ lived experiences. Giving them this grace and understanding that they had to build a life in a world not made for their identities may help you see them differently. While it won’t undo the scars of your upbringing, it will soothe them a bit. Our open dialogues around mental health are just about starting to include the perspectives and experiences of second-generation Asian immigrants. As more and more children of immigrants gain loud voices about their identities, we find solace in each others’ stories and lives.
That’s why the spaces we create at Asian Girls Ignite are illuminating and healing. We bring together storytellers to help the current generations of AANHPI girls and gender-expansive youth find a connection in their shared experiences, including being the eldest in their families.
We’re slowly seeing the struggle of Asian daughters reflected in our art, especially in the movies Turning Red and Everything Everywhere All At Once. This is a sign that our voices are gaining traction and platforms to tell our stories.
Turning Red is about a young Chinese-Canadian girl who comes of age. She has to contend with not only new emotional and biological changes but also a generational curse. The movie has a tear-inducing scene where the main character watches her mum as a young girl buckling under her pressures.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is a much heavier watch compared to Turning Red. It centers on an Asian family running a laundromat; the plot explores many philosophical tangents. Regardless of what each viewer draws from the film, the one subplot we can all relate to is the relationship between the mother and daughter.
Look for the love
Depending on your parents' reasons for leaving their home and initial experiences in America, you may carry some intergenerational trauma from them. Possibly internalized comments that affect your self-esteem, a scarcity mindset with money, or a clear steering of risk. Learning to identify what beliefs are your parents' and how they serve you can be a tough but necessary exercise to determine which of their worldviews you wish to keep to shape yours and your identity.
Understand that you won’t ever be able to “fix” their beliefs and opinions, but that you can both find ways to co-exist with your differing views. The common denominator that’ll keep you on the same plank is love.
In the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once, we see the mother, Evelyn, tell the character of the daughter, Joy, that she needs to eat healthier.
It’s Asian parent-speak to show care and love. Their love comes out in seemingly stern phrases like ‘Did you eat?’ or ‘What time are you planning to be home?’.
As children, we expect from our parents unconditional love as we stumble around and figure out life. With Asian parents, this love often feels conditional, even though it isn’t.
Your parents have to raise you in a country that they too are trying to figure out. They are parenting you with what they know, while weighed down by the expectations of their younger immigrant selves. However their lives panned out in this country, they want your life and wins to justify what they gave up back home. While this can be a very tall order and one that you have no obligation to fulfill, you can always find a group of young second-generation Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders at Asian Girls Ignite who can identify with what you’re going through.
You belong here. Join our community!
