my parents' immigration story.

the quiet power and sacrifice behind every step forward

My parents rarely talk about the details of their immigration story. Over time, they have given us bits and pieces of it but the minute details were never talked about. Like, my brother and I are aware that they struggled and worked extremely hard emigrating from Taiwan to America, but I had no idea the extent, especially the number of odd jobs my mom had and the sacrifices they both made as parents.

All this came as a shock to me as I recently started to read my mom’s book. She wrote and self-printed a book called Becky’s Struggle. Originally it was written in Chinese, but over the past year, she’s been going through it and translating it to English and she recently shared all of it with me. The story is incredible and I sat in my living room crying because I never knew of the hardships they went through. It was like going through pages of my mom’s diary, and in a sense it was. It is a raw, vulnerable, emotionally-charged, handwritten account of what it is like to leave one’s home country for another. It is an account of the struggles one goes through and what perseverance and hard work can get you.

My parents immigrated to the United States in 1985. They came with two suitcases each and barely any money. In Taiwan, my mom was a registered nurse and my dad was an electronics teacher. My parents had just gotten married in Taiwan and it was known that my mom would have to come with my dad to America so he could get his Master’s degree at Old Dominion University. As my mom described it, it was a series of mixed, complex emotions. Sorrow, reluctance, fear, heartbreak, and excitement.

My parents rented from a veteran in Norfolk, VA who converted a car garage into a living space. Rent was $230, including utilities. As my mom described it, it was a small room with only one wall separating the kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom. The bedroom had no door and no AC. The heating was oil-burning. She called this their little love nest. They didn’t have furniture so the landlord found them two old sofas, two camping beds, and a rectangle dining table in his storage and allowed them to temporarily use it. At the time, they had no money for a car so my dad spent $15 on a bicycle so he could ride to campus.

During the day, while my dad was at class, my mom would walk the nearby neighborhoods that were lined with student apartments. She said that there was always furniture and household items thrown out. She called them treasures and would keep a mental note where they were. Each night when my dad came home, they would walk hand-in-hand and pick up the treasures my mom found. One day, my mom found a car on the street with a ‘FOR SALE’ sign on it. She excitedly told my dad and he went with her to look at it. He immediately laughed and turned around and said, “dear wife, this is a famous, German car, a BMW, we cannot afford it.” However, he made her a promise that one day, when he makes money, he will buy her a famous car to drive. (Keep this in mind for later.)

My mom is a fiercely determined woman. Because she barely knew English, she found any way she could to learn. She writes in her book that while my dad was at class, she would watch Sesame Street so she could learn simple, short sentences. Their landlord had a young daughter and son and in the afternoons, the daughter, Holly, would come by and hang out with my mom. It eased my mom’s loneliness and my mom was able to learn a little bit of English while conversing with Holly. Pictured above is Holly and her younger brother, Robbie, whom my mom said would constantly go over to their apartment to say hi because he knew my mom would give him Cheerio’s 😂

The president of the Taiwan Alumni Association at the university introduced my mom to an American student who offered to come to the house to teach my mom English. My mom also took up volunteer opportunities. She did floral arranging in Taiwan and a friend’s friend owned a florist shop that needed staff. My mom eagerly volunteered to help out there so she could learn some English. My mom would walk one hour to and from there every day, through not-so-good neighborhoods so safety was a huge concern. Eventually, she had to give up that volunteer job.

She then got an opportunity to be a nanny for three children and it was within walking distance. She wanted to earn some money to help support my parent’s living expenses, so even though she had zero experience with children or had very good English, she took the opportunity anyway. That didn’t last very long because the couple said something about tax returns and paying my mom would increase their taxes or something? Anyway, she found another nannying position with an alumni couple and soon after, my parents were able to buy a used car. My mom recalls going to the dealership and coming home with a bulky, roaring car that she called a tank. Now, with a car, my mom can get a job somewhere further because she can drive!

My mom got a job at a small factory making spring roll wrappers, wonton wrappers, and noodles. She said it was freezing in there and they couldn’t afford for her to buy a winter jacket so she had to wear a really nice wool jacket (pictured above) her mother gave her. I’m not sure why my mom never told us about this factory work, but reading this in her book really broke me. She said she would be in the factory in the morning then in the afternoon, she’d have to do inventory for the grocery store that the factory was attached to, but knowing limited English, she had to come back home and look up what ‘mushroom’ or ‘celery’ was and other food words so she didn’t give the wrong inventory to the truck driver.

She writes that the factory was a family-owned local business and she saw how booming and prosperous their business was. She often wondered if her and my dad would ever be able to do the same.

She left that job to be a caretaker for an older gentleman who needed accompaniment for dialysis. This was right in line with her nursing work in Taiwan and it gave her the opportunity to see what healthcare was like in America vs. Taiwan. Unfortunately, the older gentleman passed away, but the experience cemented my mom’s determination to continue to work hard learning English and get a temporary job and maybe eventually getting her nursing degree in America.

Temporarily, she got a job as a waitress at a Chinese restaurant. It was long hours, 11am to 10pm every day. My dad felt bad and sad, but my mom said they won’t have to do this for long. They’re husband and wife and they’re a team! Soon after, she got pregnant (with me!) and the morning sickness was so bad that she had to quit.

After they had me, my dad graduated with his Master’s degree and found a job in Charlottesville, VA with a company that would help sponsor his green card. They moved to Charlottesville and it seemed like my mom thrived there with finding other Taiwanese moms with young kids. My dad had a stable income and their quality of life was slowly improving. My brother was also born shortly after.

My dad obtained his green card then found a job in Washington D.C., but because we had a lease agreement in Charlottesville, we couldn’t move. The job opportunity was too great to pass up so my dad would make the 2 hour commute to Washington D.C. every Sunday at noon and stay at a friend’s apartment for the week then drive back to Charlottesville after work on Fridays. This was something I did not know either until reading this in my mom’s book. I also didn’t know that my grandfather found out that they were living separately and didn’t like it and encouraged them to buy a house in the Northern VA area. My dad would research areas throughout the week and whenever he found something he liked and had potential, my mom would take my brother and I on a GREYHOUND from Charlottesville to D.C. to see the houses. I DID NOT KNOW THIS EITHER! I certainly didn’t remember it at all.

Money was still really tight. They now had a mortgage and my mom wasn’t working and taking care of two young kids at home. I was at a private preschool and there was tuition as well. However, my parents thought that sacrifice was worth it because it would help me socialize. All the finances were on my dad. The pressure was mounting.

This next part was something that could’ve changed the trajectory of my life and it was something I had no clue about until reading my mom’s book.

My parents were under a lot of financial pressure so they wondered if they could start their own business. My dad did a lot of active and serious investment research and reached out to two well-known food service companies. One was a pretzel company and one was a sandwich company. Ultimately, they decided to not move forward with it, but then thought they could open a French fry business because Americans love beer and fried foods (lol). However, they passed on that idea because there were just too many details that wouldn’t have worked. THEN, they decided, “let’s convert the basement into an office and we can run a mail order computer book business from home.” My dad went as far as securing a business license and flying out to California to meet with book publishers and go to book fairs. None of this panned out because the expectations of booksellers and my dad were not in line.

They went back to the drawing board and both came to the conclusion:

“At this stage, we should focus on the education of our children. We have to give them a good education and we would be irresponsible parents if we miss the opportunity to spend time with them. They only have one childhood and we need to foster the parent-child relationship. We would regret it in the future, and it will be impossible to start over again.”

You guys - my parents could’ve been business or franchise owners. I probably would not even be here today because I probably would not have an interest in technology but something completely different. My career with web development and blogging was because of my dad and his IT background (which he ended up doing, a database administrator) and how I started my tech hobbies.

Although I don’t remember too much of my childhood before 4 years old, I do recall when my dad worked at the Pentagon, my mom was a medical assistant during the day and at night, she had a part-time job as an inbound sales associate at MCI (a telecomm company that got bought out by Verizon back in the day). She worked the night shift (until 1am) so her and my dad would meet in a parking lot outside the Pentagon and exchange my brother and I. I remember one time my dad had to work overtime so he brought us into his office while he worked. Lol, thinking back on this is making me laugh because how do you get important government contracting work done with having to manage two young kids who have never been in an office setting before? I bet we talked everyone’s ears off! A core memory for me was my dad’s coworker named Russell, who I assumed felt bad for my dad while he was trying to work so he took my brother and I to a vending machine and bought us both candy. This gesture was such a core memory for me, partly because they were full sized candy bars and partly because as a kid, someone buying you something for you is just so neat.

Several years later, after my brother and I were older and could generally care for ourselves, my mom started studying for the nursing exam. She passed and became a registered nurse and was able to find a job at a clinic. We were so proud of her. Overcoming the English barrier AND learning medical terms in English. That’s so difficult but as I previously said, my mom is a determined woman! A major accomplishment and so much respect for her.

I won’t go through the rest of our lives as the rest of it is my brother and I growing up in Vienna, going away to college, and all that. The main story here is about my parents and their unrelenting determination to make it in America, and they sure did.

And yes, my dad kept his promise — he bought my mom a beautiful famous/luxury car and presented it to her with a big red bow on her birthday 😍

Now, my parents live in Los Angeles, CA in a beautiful condo where they enjoy their retired life. They fill their schedules with biking, walking, yoga, zumba, and many travels around the world. After a well-lived and hardworking life, they deserve the utmost relaxation and carefree retirement. I am so proud of them and so happy to see them thriving in this life that they BUILT.

If you’ve made it all the way down here, thank you.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my parent’s journey. There’s more to the story in the book, but it would be too long to write here so this is a brief summary. As you can see, there was an incredible amount of hardship and struggles. Majority of what they went through, I had very little knowledge of. They hardly spoke about it. So, as you can imagine, me reading this in my mom’s book was extremely difficult and heartbreaking at times, and even shocking. It has made me appreciate and understand my parents more. Why they were the way they were with us and I see them in a whole new light. Often times, when you’re young, you often think your parents are evil and the worst people, ever, but I realize now that there is so much intention behind a parent’s love for their child. They just only ever want to see them thrive and give them things that they may not have been able to have when they were growing up.

They never wanted to see my brother and I struggle. They didn’t want us to be like them. They wanted us to always be on top and have no stress, especially financial. Everything they’ve done for us and all their sacrifices has been because of their story and journey to America. I understand it now and I am ashamed of not understanding it earlier. All those fights I put up and all the resistance and mean things I’ve said seem so trivial when you’ve got a set of parents who just want the best for you.

I love you mom and dad. So so much. What an incredible life you’ve built and I’m so proud to be your daughter. Thank you for all that you have given me and Jimmy — truly.

xx

-Julie