1st Generation

Being 1st generation American in an immigrant family is like being the actualization of your parents' dreams. Families uproot from their native homes in search of something better, sacrificing everything they know for an uncertain future in a foreign land. Growing up, you constantly hear your relatives speak of their homeland with so much longing and nostalgia . "Home" is something completely different to them now. How do they handle the juxtaposition of their American life with memories  about the home they were raised in? They do whatever they have to do to survive in their new environment. They form a community and try so hard to hold on to the values and traditions of their culture. The desire to remember their roots binds that community deeply. Acts of defiance look like someone never learning English or how to drive or eating the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It feels like a safe bubble to raise children in.

Then we are born. And we are raised in a society that our parents can't completely and entirely relate to. We grow up enriched in their language, food, beliefs, music, traditions, pride. As we get older, we start to be influenced by another powerful force- America. Different language and foods, sometimes contradicting beliefs, new type of pride. Parents try to adjust to this new-ness that they didn't pass down to us. They try to fight the force when it threatens to erase the values they hold so dear. They look confused when you bring home your surveys from school about their literacy levels and primary language spoken at home. You want to write in an explanation that sometimes you speak in broken bits of two languages and that the schooling system is different where your parents are from. You settle on circling "English" because that seems like the correct answer. Inevitably you get caught in the crossfires of both cultures. It can feel isolating to not be one thing or the other.

But the isolation doesn't usually last forever. We build our own community; one with its own traditions that add bits of this and bits of that to form something true to us. We begin to realize how beautiful our 1st generation culture is, with all of its complexities and contradictions. We don't try to simplify things or limit ourselves. We could care less about surveys that don't accurately capture our essence. We appreciate that we were exposed to two different worlds. We accept that we can't possibly be one thing or another. We are 100% both and that coexistence is who we are.