Growing up, I always knew my upbringing was slightly different than that of my friends. As the child of two Vietnamese immigrants, I grew up in a household where shoes came off at the door, rice was served with every meal, and statues of Buddha sat on our mantle.
However, growing up I had been oblivious to my parents’ struggles as they adjusted from their lifestyles in Vietnam to American culture and the English language. I can still remember sitting in my car seat as my mom would drive me to elementary school and instead of listening to my favorite Disney movie soundtracks, she would play her audiobook tapes and periodically paused them to try to repeat some of the more difficult phrases. I found this normal at such a young age, when I thought everyone’s parents asked their kids how to pronounce or spell certain words.
As I grew older and became more exposed to the world around me, I realized how different my parents were from my friends’ parents. I began hitting instances where I was embarrassed by my mom’s broken English and my dad’s lack of knowledge about generic American aspects. I hated how my mom would mispronounce “squid tentacles” as “squid testicles” at the grocery store while my dad didn’t know a thing about football like the other dads.
My naivety let me resent my parents for this. I resented how they could not hold a conversation with my teachers or friends, how I had to restate my mom’s words because others could not understand her, how we never went to our grandparents’ house for Christmas like my friends did because my only living grandparent lived in Vietnam, and how my mom was not home to tuck me in and kiss me goodnight because she was taking night classes at a local community college in hopes to make a higher salary after my dad was laid off from his second job. I resented how my parents could not just be normal parents.
As I became more frustrated with the difficulties of my ethnicity, the resentment that I started to grow for my parents forced me to question this “normality” that I thought they lacked. What should normally be expected of parents? That Dad should be able to coach his kids’ sports teams while Mom makes the best homemade chocolate chip cookies to bring to the school bake sale? Or should they just love you unconditionally and support you in your aspirations?
When I entered high school, I finally began to gain a sense of clarity regarding my identity as an Asian American and as my parents’ daughter. The added responsibilities that have become part of my life due to my parents’ immigration to the United States were initially viewed as a burden by my naive, younger self. I hated the extra responsibility that was piled onto me at a young age, that forced me to mature and learn to handle my issues independently. But as I look back on these experiences now, I greatly appreciate the independence that I was forced to develop when I was younger. I grew to depend on only myself, and stopped relying on others when faced with tasks that could be handled independently with a bit more work and thought.
These added responsibilities challenged me to decide who I wanted to be, if I would rise to the occasion and face my issues head on or simply let them crash over me and swallow me whole, along with my motivation to achieve my goals. These “burdens” that came with my parents’ foreign relationship with American culture shaped me into the hardworking individual that I am today, a replica of my parents who have worked endlessly to get to where they are now. Today, I have no one else to thank for my success but my parents, and I have nothing in my heart but endless love and appreciation for them.