Unseen History
My Father grew up in a crack house with my grandfather, aunt, and three uncles. My Mother ate one to two small meals a day in order to raise my sister and I. Socialization is the aspect of conforming and adapting to conventional standards in order to fit in as an ordinary person. In this paper, I will be describing how my father and mother were discriminated against, how I grew up socialized in terms of being raced, and how I grew up being shamed for my family’ lack of wealth.
There are many refugees who escaped from Vietnam to seek a better and safer life, my Father included. My Father and his family found shelter in a crack house in San Francisco, then moved to San Jose a few year later when I was born. With little money, my Father went to school wearing mostly the same clothes from day to day. He was criticized for being poor with little to wear. My parents met while they were in college through mutual friends. My Mother graduated from the University of the Pacific after five years of perseverance with little food, hours of studying, a part-time job, and while raising kids. She would skip meals in order to make sure that we got the nutrients we needed. Her peers would always condemn her for being “too skinny”, but did not to succumb to their verbal attacks and carried on. My parents were also mocked for being Asian by the way they looked since they were part of the minority. They were both raced and classed for being Asian as well as being poor, but worked rigorously to support their families. The unseen struggles and backgrounds of people can not be discovered by a first glance, but rather by stepping back to see the bigger picture.
In the 2000s, the one of the most dominant religions around was Christianity. As a child, my parents enrolled me in a private Christian school so I could be well educated and not struggle like they did. Many of the kids at my school were privileged and had lunches brought to them from a variety of food places daily. During lunches at school, the other kids would bring out their happy meals with their toys while I had my “weird” traditional Asian food which was cheap, easy to make, and could be made in large quantities. I eventually started to believe that it was wrong to eat my home-cooked meals and that I needed to start eating more Americanized foods. Although I felt this way, I could never bring myself to ask my parents to go eat out because I saw that how they both skipped meals to save food for my sister and I. I knew my family could not afford to eat out as my parents were constantly working hard, saving every penny, and making sure money was only spent on what was necessary. I felt left out and was made fun of for not having such privileges though. It made me feel alone as a kid growing up and that I was the only one that felt this way. Growing up, I experienced guilt because of the way I lived and who I was since it was different from the other children. Since my parents were put in similar positions when they were finishing school in America, they were able to talk me through what I was feeling. There is an astonishing amount of pressure put on people including younger kids to follow social norms established by the public when they should be taught to be independent instead.
It is always important to take care of your kids and to make sure that they live good lives; my Mother especially believed in this. As I grew up and entered high school, kids were separated into cliques which was typically based on wealth. It usually depended on what you wore, ate, and drove. People with low quality things were pointed out by the people with the more lavish items. Going through school, my parents had to wear thrifted clothing or hand-me-down clothing which they were ridiculed for. They did not want me to be faced with the same pains they experienced growing up, so they sent me to school everyday with the school supplies that I needed as well as new clothing. I didn’t have a problem being raced since the majority of the population was Asians, but I was definitely classed. I did not have the most up to date styles or the newest cars to drive around in, so I was looked down upon and laughed at from time to time. Being exposed to things like class discrimination at a young age helped open my eyes as I grew older and taught me to be proud of where I came from.
In the essence of society, no one is really equal because of the way we grow up and what we see growing up. The privileged have never been in the shoes of those in poverty, while those in poverty have never had the privilege to righteously speak out the way they want to. My Father and Mother grew up working hard in mentally and physically harsh conditions, so that they could raise me to grow up in a better place. It is inconceivable to see discrimination being completely erased, but it is not unthinkable to see a society where people can grow up as one collective rather than as stratified classes.