A first-generation Chinese-American reflects on growing up under intense parental pressure to succeed, contrasting collectivist family expectations with American individualism. At 18, they started a business to pay tuition and support their parents, a choice that clarified what they actually wanted versus what their family demanded.
Today I saw this video of a Chinese girl who told her mom that she was going to quit her job and do social media full-time, and her mom's response was very disappointed. She was like, "I didn't send you to the best schools your entire life for you to do something that a middle school dropout could do." I'm like, damn. And I wanted to talk about my perspective as a first-gen Chinese American immigrant because not a lot of people openly discuss what that's like. I was raised in China, so I understand the collectivist family values. I knew people in my family whose whose jobs were arranged by their parents, whose marriages were arranged by their parents, whose whole lives were arranged by their parents. And that's like not a rare thing where I'm from. But then being educated in the US opened me up to, you know, more individualistic goals of, you know, being ambitious and being independent and having your own kind of career choices and your own autonomy. It's a very dizzying position to navigate, and it took me a long time to be grateful for where I was. And I'm gonna sound like a brat because on paper I was very privileged. I went to private school my whole life. I went to a private boarding school in the US. I'm at a private elite college. In reality, that was lowkey my only choice because I had to go to boarding school before my parents could buy a house and legally live in the US. That means I had to get good grades, I had to get great extracurriculars so that I could get into those schools, and I was working my ass off every single day so that I could feel like I belong in these places. For a couple years, I was really miserable, and it took me a while to be grateful for where I am because a lot of people don't have the resources to be where I am, and that's a fact. Yes, it's very difficult, it's a very isolating journey, but I think you have to realize how privileged you are to be in this position to even have this conversation with your parents. One thing that really helped me come to terms with that is just realizing your own ambitions doesn't have to be separate from your parents' expectations of you. When I started my first business at 18, my only goal was so that I could pay my own tuition and give back to my parents. To someone else, it might seem like I don't have like any ambitions of my own, like I was just doing everything for my parents, but that experience also really helped me define what I want in life, and it taught me so many things about running a business. And I don't think it's easy to deal with all of the difficult emotions of being a first-gen immigrant. It's, it's very isolating at times, so Yeah, I just wanted to add my thoughts because I don't think a lot of people talk about this unique identity.
