It Sure is Difficult being a 1st-Generation Immigrant Parent

They were brave souls who dragged their entire families to unknown countries with strange languages. All they had were visas, dubious (and sometimes highly exploitative) employment, and dreams of better lives in a foreign country. They kept up their hopes up as their language and cultural barriers led to endless frustrations at work and in everyday life, forcing them to suffer quietly the endless social isolation and open ridicule by their American neighbors and coworkers. They tolerated all of that, knowing that their children and grandchildren will lead better lives here and fit in the American society better than they ever will.

And certainly, these 1st generation immigrants are right about their children fitting in. Growing up to see America as their homelands, these youngsters often embraces everything America has to offer: her language, culture, customs, and people. Armed with young absorptive minds, their knowledge of America quickly surpass those of their 1st generation parents, who struggle to pick up the language, get along with Americans, and learn anything about America outside the immediate knowledge needed for them to survive.

It is only a matter of time before the kids starting looking down on the parents. To them, the parents simply do not know how to live in America. With their problems in communications, the parents need to beg the kids for help in every little detail of everyday life. Whether it be making hospital appointments, dealing with irregularities when paying bills, or even figuring out the differences between two products sold in supermarkets, the kids often have to step up to the plate, often playing the role of knowledge-provider to their parents.

A family structure, especially an Asian one, is not supposed to work this way. The parents, with their decades of life experiences, are supposed to earn the respects of their children by providing them with "street smarts" for future survival in a cutthroat society. The children are supposed to unquestionably obey the parents and completely believe in the life knowledge provided to them. The passing down of wisdom and knowledge was the pillar of a rigid hierarchical family structure that was in turn, pillars of social stability.

But once landed on the unknown foreign soil, that hierarchy almost immediately begins to break down. The parents' street smarts in the native country became completely useless. And while the parents limited their social circles to isolated pockets of their own immigrant kinds, the children went to school, became acquainted with locals, and took on the local society. The children were the ones who gained "street smarts" in the new country, and grudgingly fed them back to the parents. The social hierarchy based on teaching all the sudden found itself completely inverted.

Parents taught their children certain knowledge so that the children can grow up strong and successful to help the parents. There is an obvious benefit of exchange. But for the children to teach the parents the same knowledge in a new country? There is nothing but time cost. The parents can only acknowledge that they did not certain things, but it is highly unlikely that they will ever use the newly gained knowledge to help the kids. They are just simply too conservative and too comfortable with the status quo of being stuck in their immigrant communities with equally ignorant "foreigners."

And worse, many immigrant parents get angry and/or depressed at the thought of having to ask their young children for help. Their pride as illustrious adults are lost, and they can no longer interact with even their own families in that normal authoritative and confident manner. All that is left for them to do is to reminisce about the time they spent in their countries of origin, where they seemed to know all the "hidden unwritten rules" of society and can calmly tell others about them. Well, it is only too bad that their assimilated children are not interested in hearing about stories of some distant poverty-stricken land called "home country."

As their home countries develop, waves of "back immigration" are under way, led by the 1st generation immigrants. Their children often do not understand: why would these middle-aged parents give up the comfortable settled lives already established in the new country and jostle for social status again with younger compatriots who replaced them when they left? But the children and their offspring do not fully understand. For the 1st generation immigrant, living in a strange country with strange people and language is, after all, never going to be a high standard of living....