Today’s topic is a pretty sensitive one, as it’s not always easy to talk about generational trauma as second-generation immigrants. It’s a heavy one, especially to me, as it’s one of the factors which impacted me the most. Let's break it down and maybe shed a few healing tears together.
The Academic Pressure Cooker
Generational trauma affects us in all different ways, but one of the biggest is the pressure to do well in school. Many of our parents grew up without the opportunity to go to college. To them, college was the promised land, where you would be educated and emerge from the other side with more potential job prospects. Other alternate pathways were simply inferior to them. They saw success in those who went to college and wanted the best for us, even if that meant putting us through this “academic pressure cooker.”
We were slowly brewing under the lid of that dreadful process, but they didn't realize that their well intentions was the source of our true pain and tears. Anecdotes of our upbringings are all over the internet, from getting whooped as a child for not getting an A+ on every exam to crying over not being able to answer the math question in front of us.
A study published online in 2012 analyzes this exact notion. “Perceptions of living up to parental expectations of current academic performance and personal standards for preparation for a future career partially explained ethnic differences in frequency of academic worry.” I’m an Asian American who went through this struggle. Our parent’s favorite sayings was always “Education is everything,” or “Do better next time.” Still, I sometimes wake up and worry about the fact that I may have not met their expectations for going to an Ivy League college.
Occasionally, the term “model minority” comes up, and it feels like we now have to be come this "perfect" immigrant kid. The "model minority" myth isn't just a societal issue - it starts at home. I've cried countless nights feeling like I wasn't living up to this impossible standard. If you've been there, crying about it isn't weakness - it's a release from an unfair expectation that no one should have to bear.
These stresses really come crashing down on us. There’s not much we can do about it either. They mean well, and we know that, but it’s still insufferable. I’m sure you’ve felt this way too. Getting a bad test score doesn’t mean anything now, but it used to mean that I wasn’t good enough to be their son. Crying was the only option at moments like this. We simply had no way out, crying ourselves to sleep was the only thing that provided a bit of solace.
Lost in Translation
What age were you when they started giving you random government letters to translate for them? How were we supposed to know what the word “government” was in our native tongue?
There’s actually a term for this. “The phenomenon when the children are socializing the parents is often described as role reversal, parentification, or filial responsibility (Jurkovic, 1997, Jurkovic et al., 2004, Umaña-Taylor, 2003). “
As second-generation immigrants, we often take on the role as our family’s unofficial translator. From doctor's appointments to tax forms, we became adults way too early. I remember worrying about if I was mis-translating some of these important letters. What if I misunderstood something super important about paying property tax or rent and accidentally got us to fall into a huge mountain of debt?
We were literally our family’s lifeline.
As the only person in my family who spoke English, getting letters in the mail became stress to me. My parents were too busy to take any sort of English class at all, as they took on jobs just to make ends meet. It’s an unfair burden that we carry. Sometimes, I’m grateful for the accelerated path that this forced us to take. We learn a bit more about life, keep our language skills from rusting, and feel like an adult maybe a little sooner.
Nonetheless, growing up wasn’t easy. Being the child of immigrants comes with a lot of stress.
The Career Tug-of-War
Doctor, lawyer, engineer - sounds familiar, right? Many of us grew up with a very narrow list of "acceptable" careers. The whole notion of an “acceptable career” seems crazy to me. All jobs in the world help keep the globe spinning, how would we be able to work in the setting of one of these “acceptable” careers if there weren't janitors to keep the place clean? For sure, our parents want these higher-paying careers for us not only for their bragging rights and prestige but to see us not have to suffer through the struggles of life.
We fall into these endless cycles of guilt when they compare us to their friend’s son or daughter who just got into Harvard. We wonder what would have happened if we studied a little harder in school and we were in that position instead, but I don’t think we truly needed to worry about these things at all. More often than not, we go to college and get a degree just for the sake of it, not truly considering what our values are and what we want to study because it’s impossible to make that decision when we haven’t even seen the real world yet.
How are we supposed to know what we want to do with our lives? How are we supposed to know what major we want to dedicate the rest of our lives to when the only thing we’ve done is go through school and take tests on these subjects which we didn’t have any choice? For the vast majority of those people who end up taking a linear path and graduating at light speed, I find that they often don’t enjoy it. We need time to slow down and process our emotions, values, and desires.
If you’ve ever cried because you don’t know what to do with your life, that’s okay. Putting it bluntly, who does? Who can know what they want to do, right out of the womb? Take your time to go through life step by step, we pave our path at the rate we want.
The Invisible Weight of Sacrifice
"We gave up everything for you." How many times have we heard that? The guilt of our parents' sacrifices can be overwhelming. Sometimes, I break down thinking about all my parents gave up. It's okay to cry about this - those tears honor their sacrifices while acknowledging the emotional toll it takes on us.
Friend, if you've found yourself crying over any (or all) of these things, you're not alone. Generational trauma is real, and it hurts. But here's the beautiful thing - by talking about it, by sharing our tears and experiences, we're starting to heal. Not just for ourselves, but for future generations too.
Remember, every tear you shed is washing away a little bit of that pain. Every time you open up about these struggles, you're creating space for others to do the same. It's okay to cry, to feel overwhelmed, to question. That's how we start to break these cycles.
So next time you feel those tears coming on, let them flow. Cry it out, then reach out. To a friend, a therapist, or even to communities online where others share similar experiences. Because when we share our stories, we realize we're not alone in this journey.
You're doing great.
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