Caroline Hwang’s essay is a perfect example of someone expressing his/her feeling and sending the message out that growing up between two different cultures is a difficult life style to live. I can relate with Hwang when she says ‘ children are living paradoxes’; it reminds me a lot about my own life and how I migrated from India. I am still trying to fulfill everyone’s expectations of me. Though my parents and my expectations from me are not much different but it is like my duty now to fulfill their expectations even at the cost of my own ambitions.
The lines, ‘ To my parents , I am all American, and the sacrifices they made in leaving Korea-including my mispronounced name- pale in comparison to the opportunities those sacrifices gave me’, are of great significance. It shows the selfless love of the parents for their children. Hwang’s parents left their family and friends only for her. They wanted to give her the best they could. I m also an immigrant and my parents also tell me that they come here only for me and my two sisters and if I don’t cash this opportunity, their sacrifices are all in vain.
Though they tell me this only for me, but they don’t understand the pressure off all these expectations on me. Sometimes it feels like they are so selfish that they want me to work hard. These kinds of situation often disturb parents- children relationships, which is one of the problems faced by our society. The instance at the dry-cleaning store shows the influence of American culture on the author. It also shows the negligence of her parents towards their own culture. Due to the expectations of her parents, she couldn’t become what she wanted to be.
She wanted to become a writer but her parents wanted her to study law. This reminds me of an Indian movie ‘ 3 Idiots’, which addresses the same issue of conflict between the child’s aim and his parents’ expectations. I sometimes think that we wouldn’t have gotten a legendary golf player like ‘ Tiger Woods’ if his parents forced him to be a dentist or something else. We know his name because he is what he wanted to become. Hwang couldn’t even find a perfect life partner for her because of mixed expectations of her and her parents. I can relate this to my own Indian culture.
My parents would never like me to date any girl of non-Indian ethnicity and they would like me to marry an Indian girl. I like the author’s writing style because it is the writing style I like the most. Narrative writing style expresses the genuine thoughts that are actually going through the mind of the characters at that particular situation. Overall, I appreciate the whole essay. But I think it will be hard for non-immigrants to get attached to this essay and realize the feelings of the author. but for an immigrant, like me, it is like their own story.
