Blog 4, Topic 4

I am the eldest son of two Vietnamese immigrants who came to America during the 1980’s. Both my mother and my father left Vietnam to flee political persecution after the fall of the South to the Northern Vietnamese Communist forces taking over. They were among the millions of Vietnamese people who fled but were luckily enough to be the few hundred thousand who made it through the ordeal alive. After being forced to leave everything at home and come to America with practically nothing, they started going to school not longer in hopes of getting a career but also to learn the cultures and customs of this new foreign land they happened to be on, as well as working full time in order to create a better life for me and my two younger brothers. 

Maxine Hong Kingston in “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts” touches upon the many unique  experiences of growing up in America with immigrant parents. One important topic that in brought up by Kingston is that while she was in school she never really spoke out or talked in generally unless directly asked to. She even goes to the extreme, describing another first generation girl in her class who refused to speak altogether. I sympathize with this silence because while growing up, though never directly told by my parents,, I had a sense of never making myself stand out and never trying  to draw attention to myself. I believe this goes back to the idea that many immigrant’s have that they are not really supposed to be there and they do not belong with the majority. In this case the majority being Caucasians in America. Thus by keeping to themselves and not speaking much, many immigrants feel more at ease if they just blend into the background. This idea of blending in was relevant during Kingston’s children and still seemed to be present when I was going to primary school in the early 2000’s though I am not sure what kind of ideas are currently being held. 

Along the lines of blending in, many immigrants and first generation people seem to forgo their cultural traditions and beliefs because if seen by the majority, they will be criticized and ridiculed. Kingston in her story talks about her previous experiences of going down to the pharmacy and asking the druggist for candy because in Chinese culture, druggist always put candy in the bag when medicine was purchases. She was forced by her mother to do that and only went when her mother forced her to go. I have personally had similar experiences growing up. In Vietnamese tradition, whenever it is Lunar New year, young children would go around the neighborhood, dressed in traditional Vietnamese gowns, giving out homemade treats in order to bring good luck to the upcoming year. In the neighborhood I grew up in, everyone was of different ethnicities. Not wanting to make a fool of myself, I physically refused to go one year and ended up crying my way out of it. Without knowing it at that time, this refusal probably emotionally hurt my parents a lot because they really wanted me to grow up with as much Vietnamese culture as they did, in order to not lose a sense of where I came from and where they came from. 

Kingston’s point of view of growing up as a first generation immigrant touches on all the main problems I had growing up as well. However, if I were to write something similar, I would add a part to the story reflecting back on those experiences in the past. Personally, when I was younger I felt ashamed for being Vietnamese because I just didn’t look like or act like many of the other kids at school. However, now that I’ve grown a lot mentally, I am very proud of who I am and the heritage I come from. This idea of being the first born son to Vietnamese immigrants who left everything in their home country to start something new really drives my motivation to do well in school and in life so that I can finally prove to them that their sacrifice was worth it.