My Family's Immigration

Deportation can have a psychological effect amongst families with mixed status as far as who is a U.S. citizen and who is an immigrant. In a study between July 2010 and September 2012 out of the 205,000 people who were deported, reported that there was at least one U.S. citizen child resulting in 90,000 parents who were deported (Psychological Impact of Detention & Deportation 2). Statistics like these demonstrate how the system is corrupted and needs to be fixed and mended. Families are constantly getting ripped apart because of an unequal status among family members. Psychologically, the deportations can affect family members, especially children. Children of immigrant parents live in fear because their parents may get deported. This is

The autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer written by Li Cunxin, is effective in raising awareness of the injustice the Chinese people experienced during Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and later communist policies in China. When Li’s parents got married in 1946, they were not living in poverty. However, when the Japanese invaded China during WWII and forced all the civilians into communes, Mao then kept these communes and the Li family lost their wealth—they faced injustice and marginalisation. The Chinese population were marginalised by Mao’s use of communist principles and propaganda. They were forced into believing Mao’s views—that the West (Capitalist countries) were filthy and bad, while China was good. Li’s visit to America was an eye-opener.

I come from an immigrant family and I have had the privilege to be exposed to different social, cultural and economic realities all my life as I constantly navigated across cultures. Aside from family origin in Ecuador, I was born in Virginia and lived in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico) for six years. The biggest influences on the way I see life comes from my immigrant parents. I have learned to perceive their differences and appreciate their interactions with me.

Hello reader, I’m about to tell you a story of some of my life. I am not normally one to volunteer details about myself, which I’ll remain somewhat reserved or completely leave some events out of this autobiography. Nonetheless, I believe I can still make my story interesting for the reader. I was born 1979, in Tampa, Florida; which, is also the same day my biological father decided to leave my mother and I. My mother isn’t a native Floridian, but had moved there with her family when she was still an infant, and had spent most of her life growing up in Florida. Needless to say, my father leaving was not an exciting time for my mother and I. Although she was employed Jimmy Cater was president and had taken the nation into

There were three lessons that my immigrant parents ingrained in their first-generation children: Work hard, never give up, and most importantly, give back. Among other life lessons they taught us, these three were the basis for everything. It would be the basis that would and will define me as a person.

“As one of the Red Guards in the middle school, I was given power through Mao to torture and humiliate our teachers, headmaster or anyone we didn’t like. I didn’t know it was wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing to continue the revolution, to fight and win the class struggle”- Zhao, Lin Qing. As a teenager Zhao was a Red Guard in Guangzhou during the Cultural Revolution. When asked what her impression was a member of the Red Guards, Zhao answered with two words: “naïve and senseless”. She refused answering anything more about her experience. She said, “The memories are still too painful to recall.”

When Jan Wong first arrived in China, she was filled with the complete belief that China’s totalitarianism way of government was the best way of governing, and that no other way would do. While natives smiled behind false expressions, she failed to realize the true extent of the miserable lives under the Maoist regime until she herself experienced the injustices faced by the Chinese citizens. In Red China Blues, author Jan Wong writes of her experiences during her life in China and after, and how her whole journey led to the realization of the harsh reality that Maoism really was. As Wong learned more and more about the truth behind the totalitarian government, her own experiences helped her to transform

Originally, Liang’s “parents were deeply involved in all the excitement of working to transform China into a great Socialist country” (4). Over a serious of unfortunate events, though, he became the child of a “Rightist’s cap” mother and a “Reactionary Capitalist stinking intellectuals” father (9, 51). Impacted by the shattering of his family and horrific bloodshed created by fighting, Liang Heng began to question the Cultural Revolution. He claimed that his “family had scarified so much… but it had given [them] nothing in return” (148). Liang Heng presents his shift in ideology to demonstrate that most Chinese were no longer in support of a Communist nation. His “troubles were common enough and anyone could see there was a discrepancy between the glorious words of the newspapers and [their] painful reality (232). Even Liang Heng’s father, after many years of devotion, found that he could no longer defend the Party’s policies after he experienced the ill-treatment of the peasants in the country

My family immigration story involves a lot of typical topics and a few hardships which people may not expect. By my generation, we have become accepted as White. However, both of my grandmothers had mixed ancestry.

As a first generation immigrant family and as an only child of a missionary kid, our family moved occasionally-mostly before high school- for my parent’s ministries involving a non-profit religious organization. Because of our transitions, our family could not acquire the right time to process our residency, and eventually applied for the green card during the most sensitive period, while the government shifts and immigration law changes were eventuating, although we have lived in US for more than ten years.

During the second half of the twentieth century, many citizens in China fell victim to economic and social hardships as a consequence of the Great Leap Forward. As a result, Mao Zedong was marginalized and new power arose. However, fearing that traditional chinese culture and “ bourgeois ideology” were at risk of recurrence, Mao established the Cultural Revolution as his final attempt at abolishing his concerns. The Cultural Revolution brought about many young, loyal Maoists ready to risk it all in order to establish a new regime that rid chinese society of what Mao believed to be impurities. Among these revolutionaries included Red Guards and some members of the sent-down youth. In the memoirs, Call Me Qingnian but Not Funü: A Maoist Youth in Retrospect and Images, Memories, and Lives of Sent-Down Youth in Yunnan, it is expressed that the Cultural Revolution greatly affected the lives of the revolutionaries, and although both stories entail different circumstances, the Red Guards and sent-down youth experienced both different and similar feelings of optimism as well as concern and apprehension for the future during a critical time in both chinese history and their personal lives.

Book Review: Growing Up in the People’s Republic: Conversations Between Two Daughters of China’s Revolution. By- Ye Weili with Ma Xiaodong

My parents sent me to China soon after I was born to be in the care of my grandparents due to financial circumstances. For five years, I regarded my grandparents as my parental figures, and I always questioned why my “parents” were so old compared to my friends’ parents. I realized the truth the first time my mom called me and my grandparents told me who she was. After that phone call, my parents started to call me more frequently, and I always asked them questions about their life, as I was curious. Usually, I would forget these conversations, but sometimes, after a call, I wondered how different their lives were from mine’s; I imagined them as being wealthy and living in a big house. While I enjoyed talking to them, I never imagined the day that I would receive the shocking news that I was going to move to America to live with my

Based on my life I have seen many different things because I have two different cultural backgrounds. I was born in the United States, but my family is from Iraq and we are first generation immigrants to the United States. I am the first child in my family to be born in the United States I am the 11th child in my family I have 6 sisters and 4 brothers almost all, but two were born in Iraq. One of my older sisters was born in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia when my parent fled Iraq. I have been to many countries and have had my mind opened to many different cultures and the way it may affect each society and in turn changed my life.

My family is an immigrant to United States and just came to California in 2016 which means my parents cannot get a work that has a lot of incomes to support the family. And because we came here when I was in the second semester of 10th grade that make my family do not have any time to collect more money for me to go to college. So, that is the reason why I would like to find a job to help my parents and myself in education expenses and support my major in the