American Dream

Today while I was chatting with Dad on the phone, I told him that I drove past the apartment in Flushing where we used to live in 10 years ago. We started talking about the neighborhood and the baseball fields and shops that were near our apartment. At one point, he asked me if I remember this Chinese restaurant. I said no. I asked, "Did we go eat there before?" He laughed and said, "Of course not, son, we couldn't afford to eat at any restaurant back then."

It's been quite a while since my sister, mom and I arrived in the States on November 2, 1990 (Dad got here in '89, just after the Tiananmen Square crackdown). Throughout the years, we have moved from place to place because Dad seemed to have a penchant for working as a postdoc for professors whose research grants dry up quickly. We experienced the same kind of trials and tribulations as countless other immigrants. I still remember being excited about jumping in the car with Dad to pick up my sister from the Greek restaurant where she worked so she would "tip" me. Sometimes I fell asleep in the car, but she still tipped me. When I used the bag of coins I had saved up to buy Super Contra, Dad was angry, which was extremely rare for him, and made me return it. Twenty dollars seemed like so much to us back then. At the time I almost hated him for it because I felt I had earned that money and should have been able to spend it anyway I please. I guess I wasn't mature enough to understand how hard it must have been for him to support a family of four on less than $20,000 a year. A few months ago, I bought Street Fighter EX3 even though I was pretty sure it's a shitty game, judging by the $20 price tag. I bought it because I remember watching other kids playing Street Fighter II at this donut shop near our apartment all the time but never having the money to play myself. I know this sounds stupid and irrational, but it just felt so gratifying to finally have a Street Fighter game for myself, even if it sucks and it's not the one I had always wanted to play as a kid.

Now I feel like my family is finally and truly living the American dream: my parents have stable (it's all relative of course) jobs and bought a big two-story house with a big backyard where Dad cultivates his little veggie garden during the few months in Minnesota that isn't cold and snowing (occasionally he finds it ravaged by birds, dogs, and even a deer or two). Too bad by the time they bought the house, my sister and I were both away attending fancy-pants schools and getting edumacated.

We are all US citizens and enjoy all the freedoms afforded us by the Constitution. I feel like I have gotten the most out of my citizenship by voting and by voicing my opposition to this particularly bellicose administration and the war it has just waged. I know that I wouldn't be nearly as free to criticize the government if I were still living in China and I am thankful for the rights to which I am entitled now in this country.

I don't know where we will be in 10 years, I just hope life will get better for all of us the way it has improved since we got here.