Zhe Meng
Fall 2022
“It’s really difficult for me because of the stereotypes, like oh, they (Chinese) are supposed to be very smart, but for someone who just came from China, like I don’t know English, I failed every single one of my classes, I just totally failed”.
Sharon Liu is 18 years old. She was born in the United States to working class Chinese parents. She was sent back to China to live with her grandparents at 3 months old. At the age of 8, she was reunited with her parents in the United States. During her childhood, she moved from Michigan to Wisconsin and finally to Pennsylvania. Sharon Liu is a McCabe Scholar at Swarthmore College planning on majoring in Educational Studies. This is her story.
Sharon does not remember much about her parents. After all, what could a three-month old possibly remember? What she did know came from her grandparents: her mother and father could not take care of her because they were working hard in America to make money for the family. The unconventional upbringing took a toll on her childhood. Other than the occasional awkward exchange with her school teachers where she had to explain why her mother wasn’t around to sign her forms, she felt left out because other kids had their fathers and mothers to pick them up but she didn’t. She always felt a little sad, that something was missing from her life.
Sharon also had many fond memories of her childhood. Her hometown in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian was rustic and life was carefree. She felt a lot closer to nature back then, and a lot closer to people, too. Flinging mud and climbing trees with her playmates were part of her daily routine. “When I lived in China like I can spend most of my time climbing mango trees, running around just like actually having fun with people and be able to build like really strong friendships”.
At 8 years old, Sharon would move to suburban Michigan to join her parents. Little did she know that she’d be saying permanent farewell to China.
America was an alien place to Sharon—the people, the culture, the lifestyle… everything was just so different she could not make sense of it all. She found little solace from her parents, who were complete strangers to the 8-year-old girl. The American suburb bore little resemblance to the village life of her hometown in China. Life was busier, more controlled and less free, and people mostly kept to themselves, robbing her of the social life she had cherished.
The biggest change for Sharon was the American public school. She was treated differently because of the way she looked, by teachers and students alike. “It’s really difficult for me because of the stereotypes, like oh, they (Chinese) are supposed to be very smart, but for someone who just came from China, like I don’t know English, I failed every single one of my classes, I just totally failed”.
Sharon also had a hard time making new friends. All the other children were white, spoke English, and knew each other since they kindergarten. It’s difficult to put in words what made it so difficult; she just feels that she could probably “never completely fit in because we’re just fundamentally different”.
Sharon was not spared the prejudice of her school teachers. “I will be seen as more like someone who’s different and potentially more dangerous to the rest of them. That’s why, whenever I do something, the punishments are really, really big”. She was seen as more of a rule-breaker that deserves to be disciplined more often and more harshly than her peers for nothing more than the way she looked. No instance was more traumatic than the time she was framed for sexually assaulting another student. Her friend had received an award and Sharon patted her on the back in congratulations. Her teacher saw the move as inappropriate and wrote her up for sexual assault. The principal and her parents were all summoned, none of whom believed her version of events.
Sharon never received the support she needed from her parents because they were shaped by a completely different world view, one without the knowledge of racial bias in the school system. She explains: “they didn’t believe me, because I think teachers are supposed to be this figure that we entrust our children to be educated properly…there’s no one like I can really reach out to or get support from, because they didn’t understand”.
Sharon can’t help but feel that her parents cannot fully empathize with her experience. They work in Asian restaurants and interact solely with people within their ethnic enclave. Yet she had no such place to escape to. Like the children of many immigrants, the English-speaking children are the adults of the house. From bank statements to legal documents, she did all of it on her parents’ behalf. “It’s just sometimes I feel like it’s really hard because I have to carry their load of the work for me. I feel like I had to play the role of a parent for myself most of the time”, Sharon said. And she played that role with grit and maturity, taking the future of her education in her own hands by taking the SAT, filing for federal student aid, and applying to college herself.
As Sharon got older, her problems were no longer fitting in and adopting the American way of life, but keeping in touch with her Chinese roots. When her grandparents visited, they often commented on how American she became, the food she ate, the clothes she wore, and the way she spoke, her Chinese slipping away as time passes. She rarely spoke Chinese outside of her house, and scarcely too, with her parents. How was your day? What did you do? The simple questions parents asked their children after school were not so simple for Sharon. Because everything had happened in English, because there are things in English that had no Chinese equivalent, and because it is so tiring to mentally translate everything in your head, she often took the easy way, and put that conversation to an end.
“I’m working really hard and really trying to preserve the last, last section of me that’s still Chinese because it is my origin, it is who I am, it is where I came from, so I would like to keep it while I try to fit in… maybe I’ll never balance them (Chinese and American identities), but if it’s who I am, if I’m comfortable with that identity, then I think I’m good”.
Chinese or American? Sharon doesn’t quite feel Chinese any more. She spent the last 10 years of her life trying to become an American and that’s how she sees herself now. She identifies as an Asian American, mostly because others label her that way. They can’t tell the various Asian countries apart anyways, she would say. At some point it becomes too much to explain, and so she has come to terms with her new racial identity in America.
Sharon has found her community with her local Chinese church, where Chinese immigrants of all ages and background were brought together by their common faith. Elderly immigrants spoke Chinese to her and the youngsters shared her experience of grappling with their mixed identities. “I’m working really hard and really trying to preserve the last, last section of me that’s still Chinese because it is my origin, it is who I am, it is where I came from, so I would like to keep it while I try to fit in… maybe I’ll never balance them (Chinese and American identities), but if it’s who I am, if I’m comfortable with that identity, then I think I’m good”. The church became a community where she felt at home, where her Chinese identity reconciled with her American one, and where her whole family was there by her side. What is home? “It’s not a place, it’s where your family is with you”.