Prompt 2: The Past

My life as a Chinese-Canadian immigrant was one seemingly destined for growth, at all emotional costs. Many immigrant families do – we optimize for a goal-driven, growth-heavy lifestyle because it’s how we managed to survive, and ensures our survival for many years to come.

Many of the parents in my community struggled to maintain a façade of non-hierarchical pleasantness among their Caucasian coworkers, who always persuaded them that they were ‘friends’ or ‘family’, even as the racial divides became clearer. I was told to steer away from White people in romantic relationships – not out of a fear that I would be mistreated, but out of a potential loneliness I would endure: in their opinion,‘ Chinese people will say the painful truths, but Guai Lo (White people) will only extend a painful lie further.’ ‍These differences in ideology made them feel misunderstood and isolated, while they continuously told me and my sister to look up to the very population they held distain for as a shining example of how to succeed in this new world. Our growth meant their stagnation, but they felt like it was their responsibility to assimilate us

 So reluctantly, we grew.

The insignificance of certain social signifiers in their new Canadian environment, like school rankings, was also strange to them. An unspoken motto in our house was that what is measured, is managed, and it felt strange to move across the globe, then have a fundamental part of your life diminished, seemingly not important anymore in the grand scheme of things. You get angry, then tired, then complacent.

Yet, our family’s situation is not uncommon, at all – we are but a product of the forces that propelled globalization and capitalism into the spotlight, a tiny, emotionally charged consequence of growth for the sake of survival. And if growth means survival, then to survive, we must understand how to quantify the un-quantifiable.