"Success" or Success
"Son its not it is not pronounced actor, it is pronounced doctor". This joke has resonated with me for the last 2 years. My dad first found this in one of his infamous WhatsApp group chats and immediately sent it to me. It was probably one of the funniest things I have seen because it is so relatable to me and probably millions of other immigration children. This joke screamed success. The father expects the son to be a successful doctor, but the son wants to be a successful actor. In the memoir, Crying In H-Mart by Michelle Zauner, it's easy to pick up the difference between Michelle and her mother's idea of success in their mercurial relationship. Two distinct beliefs because of two distinct environments. One portrayed immigrant success, and one portrayed happy success. What truly was success and how does it develop complex relationships?
The most classic scene we can look at to pick up little bits of details about the differences in their time in the Korean Soul Food Restaurant. In that little cafeteria, Michelle's mother lets out furious words about Michelle's new job as a musician, clearly upset with what Michelle became compared to what she could have become. Her mother was a Korean immigrant; she grew up with the values of success being in a stable job, with a stable income, and making sure your family has a stable future. A view of success that some might expect to be toxic, or even too old. You can see Michelle's mom in most immigrant families that come to the United States, a land of opportunities. Never would you want to waste such fertile land; so many parents have to make the best of it for themselves and their children. So it becomes toxic to many immigrant children; they often have to deal with glorified views of what they are supposed to do with absolutely no resistance. You must have the best grades, take the best classes, study over the summer for the next year, and participate in as many clubs as possible for your college apps. No child in their sane mind wants to do this, yet resisting is not an option.
However, is this toxic cycle only for the children, or is it toxic for the parents as well? Personally, parents should not be looked at as evil aristocrats just ruling over their children; they are also victims to a certain extent of what they project on their children. In the Vanishing Half, Stella, a newly statued white woman, decides to live a whole new life, a whole new life full of new white expectations. Stella, afraid of what could happen if her black side part was exposed, made sure that her daughter would never pick up on any hints of her genetics. Stella often stopped Kennedy from associating with black children, even the new neighbors in her all-white neighborhood. Stella needed to live a life away from "black" to protect her daughter from the discrepancy black folk faced at the time, but also to protect her reputation and possibly her own life. Being as white as possible for Stella was what she saw as success, and she ensured her daughter felt the same way.
For many, it's easy to assume that parents who are more strict, like immigrants, tend to be evil just for the fun of it; however, taking into consideration key factors like where and how they were brought up, maybe they were also brought up in a similar environment, or they have t why imhis innate fear of not watching their kids succeed or something like the family lines reputation could be on the line generally influences their view of success and how they treat their kids to live up to it.
I would read this article to get a better perspective of how Immigrants parents feel.
Let's take Michelle into perspective now; what made her so unsuccessful in her mom's eyes but super successful in her own eyes? Michelle was "Americanized." She had an American view of success due to the new era of embracing oneself that had spread through the US in the early 2000s. This entailed being happy in whatever position you are because you are doing what you love; a brewing pot for failure is what Michelle's mom would call it. The environment in the United States was what essentially projected this view onto Michelle and also many other children in similar situations. This was a more sensitive place, and things were easy to pass by because there were rarely any consequences to actions. Parents, especially, let kids just run wild and figure out their own path because they are also, in fact, lazy. The parents, in this situation, are to blame more than they aren't because being just absent is not an excuse. Michelle picked this up, thinking that this wouldn't require as much hard work or as much pestering from her mother.
Read this to see why immigrant kids are better off sometimes.
Many kids actually picked up on and started developing a sense of morality based on it. Success became glorified to them, something of weaker stature that not everyone had to achieve. It was now more of an idea of people's own self-worth and how they felt about themselves, very different than "Let's get first in this competition!". In a sense, they were being weak if you were looking at it from an immigrant parents' perspective, so of course, it would some form of stir-up between two people who want the best for each other, and that is exactly what happened between Michelle and her mother.
Success can be happiness or stability, yet both have their ups and downs, creating complex relationship between children and their parents because of how they could conflict. Success portrays everything someone will do in their entire life time, and when someone has conflicting view on something so important problems bound to start, and a weird relationship will develop. Especially an immigrants verses an American.
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