#18 Being illegal: 听妈妈的话

爸爸说：“孩子，长大以后你要坚强，任何事都不要放弃。做一个成功的人。”

妈妈说：“妈没有别的希望，只要你开心，妈就心满意足了。”

I grew up in a family where my dad wants me to succeed in life, and my mom simply wants me to be happy. It seems ironic that today, I am struggling with both things. I am neither successful nor happy.

Why? Now that I have grown up, I think parents pass on to their kids their deepest regrets in life as advice.

My dad is not successful in my opinion. And my mother is definitely not happy.

In other words, I do not see living examples of these tenets in my parents.

If my dad had treated my mother right, I don’t think there would ever be that advice from my mother. My childhood is filled with my mother talking in tears on the phone to my father, who came to the US when I was three and had been toiling away in restaurant life since then. Till today, he still speaks broken English. He still could not call the electricity company to change billing plan or address. Every time I called home in college, he complained to me how difficult the restaurant work is, how tired he is, and how difficult life is.

I did not want to hear it. If you must complain, then don’t tell me to be strong in life.

My mother, on the other hand, had a much worse health and was the hardest worker I know. She just worked, worked, and worked. Every time I saw her in the restaurant, she never ever took a break. Yet she never said a word of how difficult life was. All she wanted, however, is some appreciation from my father. Perhaps she developed the mechanism that no matter your circumstances, be happy. Perhaps being happy isn’t easy for her and is against her genetics – her mother (my grandmother) committed suicide when my mother was 11. Being illegal of course added extra strain to the harmony of our family, and she was particularly worried about whether I could go to college, could afford my tuition, or could find a job afterwards, all of which are easier said than done when you are illegal. But without my father’s love, she probably has never been happy in this marriage, a marriage that is kept together only perhaps because of their lack of the legal right for a divorce in this country.

Thus being illegal for 12 years, I measure success only by how well I could treat a girl right. I remember when my girlfriend at the time cried one day, I was totally lost and tried my upmost best to stop her crying. It came from my mom’s crying.

"Wealth, status, and success mean nothing without a whole family."
Photo credit to Cindy Wang.

I wish their advice to me were the reverse:

Dad: “When you grow up, learn to treat a girl right.”

Mom: “Mom has no wish but for you to be successful in life, like your dad.”

That is why even though I am illegal, I never want to use marriage to obtain legal status. I cringe at the idea of marrying an US citizen so I could be legal. I flinch from even looking at a girl straight in the eyes in general. I do not want to grow up to be like my dad. For me, the biggest dream is not the Dream Act; it’s to find a person whom I could share my life with.

Wealth, status, and success mean nothing without a whole family.

Being illegal makes you listen to your mom.

Credit:
I want to thank Cindy Wang for the photo to this post.

I want to thank UW TOSA for showing 星空 which gave me the inspiration for this post.