Season 3, Ep. 22: Negotiating Generational Trauma

For me, less of my history with war, but definitely with negotiation with upbringing of being in an Asian American household.

Growing up in America, I moved here when I was seven.

And the first few years were very challenging because you have to adopt a new culture, there's different language.

But I think the hardest one for a lot of Asian Americans that I recognize in first generation Asian American is the dichotomy of your identity.

Are you identifying Asian? Are you identifying American? You feel like you're not either because you're half of everything.

You go to school and you come home and your parents say, speak our home language.

But then they say, oh, go to school and adapt everything to be American.

You want the American dream.

So you're confused.

Are you living and honoring your culture and your history and your roots? Or are you supposed to adapt to the new identity and live that big American dream? That was hard for me to navigate.

And I think a lot of Asian Americans out there, even to this day, they might still feel like, where do I belong? Right?

So talk a little bit, you know, I know that you said that it was really hard for you, but let's dive a little bit deeper in terms of like how that impacted you, how that impacted your self-esteem, your sense of self, who you are.

Like, you know, what does hard look like?

Oh my gosh, like there's so many fun stories in this book that I share.

But one of the hardest thing and you can tell me if this happened to you, but growing up in our household, we don't speak about feelings.

It's not a topic or a subject we openly talk about.

If you feel scared, if you feel uncomfortable, if you're nervous, you have anxiety, worry, anything that is negative, you don't talk about it.

And even if you are excited proud we also cannot show too much of it either it's like stoic faith it's like humble you know like oh i got straight a's humble i just did well at school you cannot say you don't celebrate it right then but when you do get a bad grade like a c get in so much trouble yeah then the emotions are there then the much stronger emotions come out from your parents right like how come you can't do that we go through war to get you here we gave up everything in our hometown so you would have a better future and you come home with the sea right like so much burden goes on your shoulder and not only for the grades but later on when you get a job you cannot get become an actor or a artist or a singer or musician lawyer doctor accountant that yeah yeah and and you know for i know some uh korean americans they do they start their own business even starting a business is not good enough now even if you come home with a large paycheck they say oh i cannot tell my friends about it because they don't know what that is they it's not good enough I think growing up, I always felt like I wasn't good enough.

You know, whether it's my grade that's not good enough or my cooking that's not good enough or the way I behave as a woman, as a female, was not good enough.

There are always these unspoken rules in the house that we have to abide by.

Like the older one always has to be the responsible one.

The girl has to be the responsible one.

The girls have to be the neat ones.

the orderly one and the one that cooperates we have to sacrifice all our choices and the male don't get challenged at least it was in my household

yeah it's very similar you know my parents came right before i was born so i was born like two months after they arrived so i had a lot of the similar type like unspoken rules just like you said like oldest person, the oldest child is the most responsible of everything.