What It's Like Being the Daughter of an Immigrant

When you're also the daughter of an American

By Cora MackPublished 5 years ago • 5 min read

What It's Like Being the Daughter of an Immigrant

I am the child of an immigrant.

I am the child of an American born citizen.

Life is interesting, so to speak. Life is complicated.

I learned a lot about the world. I learned that the American education system is laughable. I heard a lot of stories about what's better in other countries. I got to experience other cultures firsthand. I got to live a unique childhood.

I grew up an only child, with only one set of grandparents and one uncle close by. Everyone else, for the most part, was a distant relation in another country halfway across the globe. It's not that I didn't see those relatives. I actually grew up seeing them likely more than my American family.

My non-American grandparents had only one child, though, who also had only one child: me. There was a certain responsibility on my shoulders. I'm not sure if that was just in my head, but as I got older it felt more and more like I was somehow responsible for, well, not hurting my grandparents' feelings by not visiting or not keeping in touch with them. As their only grandchild, I had it hammered into my head that I needed to keep in touch, make the effort, be present.

I spent most of my summers visiting my family in another country. I didn't get summers to myself like most kids. School let out, I was gone. Youth me didn't get to go have fun with friends. Youth me didn't have a personal life outside of school once summer started. I know this is a ridiculous thing to notice, especially considering how many people have families abroad that they can't see. I know I'm luck in that regard. But to a kid, it's the end of the world. And it's a quick way to ensure that you don't get invited anywhere after a while. That's the end of anyone's social life.

My dad never cared to bother learning another language, and he didn't encourage me to learn it either. So naturally, I grew up adamantly not wanting to learn another language. After all, no one else here spoke it so why should I? My mom spent so much of my childhood trying to convince me that it could be like a secret code, a way of talking behind people's backs without them realizing it. I didn't care. My friends didn't speak it so neither would I. Pesky kid logic, right? Over the years, my knowledge of the language grew less and less and I forgot much of it. I can make myself understood, but I'm nowhere near fluent. Not that I ever was, but at least as a kid I was much more so.

I spent most of my life going back and forth with my mom, filling in for my dad who never bothered to travel with her to check in on her family. It's exhausting filling in for the role of a spouse when you're a child. That's not to say that all immigrant parents are like that, but I can guarantee it wouldn't have been the same situation if my mom hadn't been an immigrant. And being your parent's rock locally has to be so much less stressful than doing so internationally.

I had an unfair disadvantage in the family department. My mom's family was more close knit than my dad's, I think, but I've never felt really all that close to them. Growing up in the States, I never fully fit in with foreign culture. It doesn't matter that my mom raised me to fit her culture as best she could. I never fit with them. But because I had a foreign mother and I spent so much time following her around to visit her family in an effort to form relationships with the other half of my family, I also failed to be fully "American".

What I feel most strongly about, though, is that I've missed out on so much. On both sides.

I missed out on relationships with my mom's side of the family.

I missed out on friendships.

I missed out on cousins' weddings.

I missed out on the birth of cousins' children.

I missed out on elderly relatives' funerals.

I missed my grandfather's death. By hours.

He's the one man who never made me feel like I didn't have someone in my corner. He's the one man who I know, without a shadow of a doubt, was so proud of me. He's the one man whose face showed every ounce of love for me, without fail, on a regular basis. He's the one man I could count on to never say a bad word about me to anyone. He's the one man I know who bragged about me to every person he knew.

He had an accident two months after the last time I saw him. We had just gotten the tickets to fly back out there again when my grandma called to let us know about the accident. She said she'd call back if things got worse, and 24 hours later she called back to let us know that it was bad. We needed to get there as soon as possible. We tried. We really tried.

One of our cousins picked us up at the airport. She didn't even have to say anything. The look on her face said everything. The look on my mom's face broke my heart.

Sure, I have the "luxury" of traveling abroad. But it's not much of a luxury when I'm not actually traveling and enjoying a vacation. It's no different than spending the weekend at grandma's in the next town over, aside from the cost of plane tickets and the language barriers. It's not much of a luxury when I can't do it regularly because it's so incredibly time consuming and expensive. It's not much of a luxury when my ability to go on actual vacations is limited because all of my finances are spent on visiting family.

Sure, I have the "luxury" of being a part of two cultures. But it's not much of a luxury when the culture you come from isn't common in the culture you live in so you have to explain all your oddities to everyone 24/7. It's not much a luxury when you're expected to fit every stereotype that country has. Yes, we have unusual food at Thanksgiving. No, it has nothing to do with the fact that my mom is of another culture. No, my mom doesn't make everything from scratch just because that's what people are supposed to do there.

Sure, I have the "luxury" of knowing a second language. But it isn't much of a luxury when I have no reason to use it outside of my family because no one else speaks the language. I can't even use it on a resume because literally no job outside of a translator, maybe, would need to know it.

It's hard having family abroad. It's stressful being the only child and having to worry about how to care for your aging parents, who don't speak your language and refuse to move where you are. It's difficult having to learn a whole other system in legal matters like wills after a death. It's tiring having to travel for over 24 hours (one way) to visit your family.

I love my family. I love my heritage. I love my culture. I love my background. I love everything I'm lucky enough to have in life because of my parents. Yes, even having family abroad. But it's not all it's hyped up to be either.