Struggles of Asian Americans

The other day, my son was mimicking the accent of a Chinese lady working in his school cafeteria: " du yu wan a peessa? give me a dolla!" (do you want a piece of pizza? give me a dollar if you do).

I was very upset that he did that. I asked him why he would do that. He said his classmate taught him this and he felt it was funny. And my son is only 11.

This is not a funny matter. Asian Americans (and many other immigrants in America) who have an accent speaking English often feel that they are treated unfairly. Speaking with an accent gives people an impression that the person is poorly educated. Sometime ago, a close friend of mine told me that he could not get promotion or work at a position he felt well qualified, purely because of his accent. Our mouths may speak with an accent, but our brains do not think with an accent, I heard someone once declared.

The trouble is that not every type of accents are treated equally. European accents (particularly of west and north Europe) are treated favorably. On the other hand, Asian accents and Spanish accents do not receive the same favor.

When I was in Cornell many years ago, I read about an undergraduate Chinese American student expressing his feelings about his heritage in a Chinese email forum. He said he was often shamed of being with his parents, because of their accents.

The struggle of our first generation Asian immigrants is enormous. We are a very family-focused culture. We work hard and sacrifice personally, hoping to bring a better life for our next generation. We save a lot, and rarely care about our own outward appearance. We would be very willing to buy a $100 shirt for our children, but for ourselves, we buy the least expensive ones. We speak in accents. We have a lot of feelings, but find it difficult to express them because of the language hindrance.

We thought if we work hard to bring good lives for our children, they would appreciate us, and be grateful to us because of our love and sacrifices. But the sad thing is, we are losing our children. Our children don't feel proud of their parents, and their heritage and cultures. And we the parents, after so much personal sacrifice, are gradually losing the hearts and minds of our children.

You cannot blame our children for that. Our children can rarely find a role model, or a hero, that has Asian background, to look up to. What they can only see in the media make them so conscious about themselves, because the media are black and white dominated (used to be only white dominated).

I have an advice for all our struggling Asian parents: every summer break, bring your children to Asia. Let them witness first hand the vibrant culture there. Bring them to places and teach them the history about those places. Let them have a chance to see the culture programs of our native lands. I am hopeful our children will soon discover the beauty in our own cultures, find heroes in our history and people, and feel proud of being themselves.

Working hard is not enough. Saving lots of money for your family is not adequate. You need to care about the spiritual needs of your children.