Forty Dollars
- Caroline Tan
- Saratoga, California
- UNITED STATES
- 16
My mother came to the United States with $40 in her pocket and a limited knowledge of the English language. She was the first from her family to come to the United States, making the experience even more daunting as she didn’t have anyone to guide her as she made her way through the “New World.” To assimilate more easily into the American culture, she went by the name of “Penny,” an American version of her Chinese name, and settled in the unknown city of Akron, Ohio.
My father came to the United States a few months before my mother did, and with a relatively stronger grasp of the English language. He got a job working in a biomedical engineering hospital, fixing hospital equipment while he finished his studies at the University of Akron in Ohio. Like my mother, my father also went by an American version of his Chinese name, signing all of his documents as “Lewis Tan.”
Both my mother and father came to the United States as immigrants in search of greater economic opportunities and a better future, a goal that was sometimes prioritized over their cultural heritage as they strove to assimilate themselves into an unfamiliar territory. They didn’t know anybody in Akron, Ohio, and the jobs they initially took up didn’t reflect the years of college education they had received in China. Eventually, both my parents followed better job opportunities and moved to El Paso, Texas, where they lived for seven years.
I was born in El Paso, Texas, a product of both my family’s Chinese heritage as well as my country’s American culture. As an “ABC” (American-born Chinese), I’ve grown up with English as my first language and Chinese as my second, unlike my parents, who studied English for years and spoke Chinese for even longer. My name, Caroline, is even English in origin, as is my sister’s, Kimberly, showcasing my strong ties to the American culture.
Although my sister and I haven’t faced the same difficulties that both our parents had when they immigrated to the United States, and although the English language comes to us more easily than it had for our parents, we still feel a sense of connection to our Chinese culture. We eat dinner with chopsticks, speak Chinese in our household (at times), and carry our heritage in our Chinese last name, Tan. Our lives and identity are primarily American, but we still retain traces of our Chinese ethnicity, traces that our parents’ struggles in the United States have only helped to sustain.
My parents’ immigration story, in terms of balancing both cultures, can be considered a success. While both of them faced difficulties assimilating into America, they were able to overcome such difficulties. Now, both of them have settled down in Silicon Valley (Saratoga, California) with fulfilling jobs working for Qualcomm and Google, advancing technology. They’ve not only been able to thrive in American culture, but they’ve done so while embracing their Chinese one.
My mother and father no longer go by “Penny” and “Lewis”; instead, they’re now known as “Pian” and “Liewei,” tributes to their ability to immigrate to the United States, assimilate into American culture, and yet continue to retain their Chinese ethnicity and heritage. And as for me, I will always be Caroline Tan.