Fictive Fragments of Father & Son

"To assimilate means to lose parts of your old identity to become something else" 

I both agree and disagree to this statement. This is the most relatable reading to me because of the racism that the characters and experience and the struggles that the Asian immigrant parents experienced. 

Both of my parents came to America to experience the "dream" of living an economically stable life while raising a family that had a better life than their own. This dream seemed almost out of reach for two immigrants that were alone in a foreign world. My parents remind me of the constant struggles they experienced, like experiencing different cultures and religions, different foods, and different lifestyles -different- everything. I hear stories all the time of the racism they have encountered, from being called dog-eater for passing someone while driving to getting "chinaman or gook" yelled at them. Throughout all these hardships my father seemed to accept some realities that just weren't his. At the time it was a genre of music that he didn't seem to enjoy but the rest of the world did, so he went and bought all the tapes for them and listened until he learned to like it. He was forcing himself to be American. This overcompensation is a small example, but could've happened to him several times throughout his journey here. And through this overcompensation comes the loss of your original culture, his Filipino culture. 

The only true link to my parents identity was their language. They could only speak to each other and they could only understand each other. When my siblings and I were born, they never attempted to teach us. They made this hard decision because they knew that the world wasn't so ready for bilingual kids, especially when the other language is tagalog. They feared that in school we would be either made fun of or get in trouble with the teacher for not understanding not to speak tagalog to them. I'm upset with this fact that my parents had to let go of their link to their culture because America was not ready for it. I'm upset with the fact that my parents had to give up so much for the price of opportunity. 

"To assimilate means to lose parts of your old identity to become something else" 

In a generation or two, who knows how much of the Filipino culture will be apparent in my family's bloodline.