mejor que ayer, peor que mañana
Óleo sobre lienzo y tabla
2024
As someone born here, from a family born there; I’ve oftentimes felt a disconnect between my own experiences in the US and the culture my parents raised me with. There are many things that strain the wire between us: resentment, love, guilt, the list goes on and on.
There are things about them I cannot even begin to comprehend, and there are things about me I fear they will never understand, much less accept.
That leaves us at a standstill, each person fearing to take the first step towards connection. My goal with these paintings is to learn how to communicate those undivulged feelings, and begin to heal. It's a slow process but at least today I know that we are better than yesterday, worse than tomorrow.
Como alguien que nació aquí, de una familia que nació allá; Muchas veces he sentido una separación entre mis propias experiencias en los Estados Unidos y la cultura con la que me criaron mis padres. Hay muchas cosas que tensan la cuerda entre nosotros: enojo, amor, remordimiento, y mucho más.
Ellos han experimentado cosas que ni siquiera puedo empezar a comprender. Y hay experiencias mías que temo nunca entiendan, mucho menos acepten.
Eso nos deja a todos paralizados, cada quien con miedo de dar el primer paso hacia una conexión. Mi objetivo con estas pinturas es aprender a expresar esos sentimientos y comenzar a sanar. Es un proceso lento, pero al menos hoy sé que estamos mejor que ayer, peor que mañana.
Due to our financial situation, my grandma had to come from Mexico and take care of me and eventually my brother while my parents worked full-time. By the time the both of us were grown her visa had expired and her health declined. She has missed many things in her home. The deaths of two sons, the birth of a great grandchild, her freedom. And I know she loves me, but in the stories she tells me of her home I feel the blame she has for me, for being the reason she's here and not there.
Anonymous
I don't care what baggage they dragged over the ocean. They have no right to make me carry it the rest of my life.
Abigail Hing Wen, "Loveboat, Taipei"
As a kid to keep me entertained my grandmother would have me 'clean' the beans which just consisted of removing the pebbles that came in the bag, but it would keep me entertained for hours. And sometimes, if she got done with the housework early, she would sit down with me and we would get to play loteria using the same beans as place markers.
Anonymous
But it's worth it. You got to grow up in America. You'll have opportunities we can't even dream of.
And grown up I have, knowing that it falls to me, as the elder child, to earn back the cost of two lives.
Abigail Hing Wen, "Loveboat Taipei"
Growing up my first job and it's a job I still hold to this day was translator from my mom. Going with her to her doctors appointments cause she doesn't speak English, and having to awkwardly explain her symptoms to the doctor. No child should ever have to do that. Any time... her credit card company would send a letter in the mail or would call, I would have to be the translator. I at a very young age had to help this lady understand the lease that she was signing for the apartment that we lived in.
Cynthia Appiah OLY, (tiktok)
My family is not running a marathon. We are running a relay. My parents have gotten me this far. Everything I do is carry their hopes along with my own.
Maria E. Andreu, "Love in English"
We love each other and would do anything for each other but there is a difference in culture and how we grew up which I think affects how we communicate with each other. Not as vulnerable with each other as I would like.
Chris
It's one thing to dance around the little controls Mom exerts on my life. Quite another to shed a hard-fought-for future of financial security and respect for our families. My parents would slit their throats for my happiness, and in return my future is there future.
Abigail Hing Wen, "Loveboat, Taippei"
We have to program their heads since they are little. Since you have them in your arms and you are breastfeeding, 'Son, you are going to be a good person.'
Carmen Valdez, “Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates”
Maybe you speak different languages at home than you speak out into the world, but even if you're not explicitly speaking a different language there are different codes of conduct at home than there are out into the real world... It makes you have to think about the context that you're operating in and either switch things on turn things up turn things down, and that is literally empathy... Some people are empathetic, they understand things but they don't choose to be compassionate. But I do think as the children of immigrants or as immigrants, we are naturally more inclined to be more compassionate, cause we're that much closer to it.
Rima, (tiktok)
I want my daughter to get her bachelors. And yes, a masters and doctoral degree would be by the Glory of God. If not, if she could have some form of professional occupation, whichever one she chooses.
Carmen Valdez, “Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates”
We always say, 'there are so many people that would give millions of dollars and people that have given their life to be where you [children] all are. Take advantage, take advantage of school.
Carmen Valdez, “Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates”
One day we'll be orphans; and be faced with the question of: who am I without my parents?
Jessica George, "Maame"
Something happens to a kid when they see their parent treated like that. Something happens to the parent.
Abigail Hing Wen, "Loveboat, Taipei"
I genuinely love my mom so much it makes me cry. She immigrated to America on nothing but $200 and to this day works 12-16 hour shifts to cover my tuition and to make sure I'm spoiled and to have anything I want and I don't deserve so much love but she's my mama. I don't know what I could ever do to repay her.
c.j, (tiktok)
I love that I’m bilingual, I love that I grew up in my culture, growing up, even though I was born in and raised in the U.S., it didn’t really seem that way because I lived in a very diverse neighborhood with lots of different languages being spoken and different cultures to learn from. I was lucky that I didn’t feel isolated as a child of immigrants because most of us were. Until I was 9, then we moved to Indiana, and it was different. I was different, and sometimes that was hard, but I was always proud to be 1st generation. I was the translator for my parents until my dad’s English got better but I and my sister still translate a lot for my mom. Sometimes that can be frustrating for me but I’m proud I can do that.
Jenny Maldonado
Mom used to tell me that white people don't understand us, would never understand us, even when they are well-meaning and patient... I thought she was being reductive and unforgiving, but she might have known something I didn't: how do I explain to [my white boyfriend], who feels only love and little obligation, that my life comes with an excess of the latter? You marry into this, whether you like it or not.
Scaachi Koul, "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter"
When I told my friends about the upcoming trip, everyone purred about what a great time I'd have, told me to take a lot of photos, told me to eat everything. But if you're going to India to see your family, you're not going to relax, you're not going to have a nice time. No, you're going so you can touch the very last of your bloodline, to say hello to the new ones and goodbye to the older ones, since who knows when you'll visit again.
Scaachi Koul, "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter"
Even though she didn't understand everything they were singing, she moved her lips anyway. It was just like that at the citizenship ceremony. Whether or not you understood the oath you made, you had to move your lips.
Souvankham Thammavongsa, "How to Pronounce Knife: Stories"
[I don't like] watching my parents miss their country and families.
Anonymous
Fitting is a luxury rarely given to immigrants or children of immigrants. We are stuck in emotional purgatory. Home, somehow is always the last place you left, and never the place you're in.
Scaachi Koul, "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter"
I love that I'm in touch with my culture, and exploring it for myself like the importance of getting your nameplate. When I got mine from my grandma the first time, I screamed.
Alicia
We are not meant to be in this country. We did not want to come. We were forced to flee or die. Americans perceive desperate brown masses swarming at their golden shores, wildly inventing claims of persecution for the opportunity to flourish in this prosperous land. The view from beneath the bridge is somewhat different: reluctant refugees with an aching love of their forsaken homeland, of a homeland that has forsaken them, refugees who desire nothing more than to be home again.
Edqidge Danticat, "Everything Inside"
I notice that while I might be a person of colour among the diaspora back home, or in any white-majority country, here I am the white person... In Toronto, some Indian cab drivers will ask me where my family is from, and when I tell them they think they're bonding with me when they talk about how much they hate muslims. Or, in the case that the driver is Muslim, he'll try to bond with me over with 'the blacks.' All of us struggle towards whiteness.
Scaachi Koul, "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter"
The only way to do better, to have better, is to lose pieces of what was. It's inevitable that you can't bring everything with you, like carrying water in your cupped hands from one river to another. There are too many cracks, and if you're so eager to move, you'll just have to get used to new water.
Scaachi Koul, "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter"
Men in America have to be taken care of more than women. Because it's possible that tomorrow [a parent] will come on your door and say, "My daughter is expecting a child from your son."
Carmen Valdez, “Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates”
It's a bittersweet thing when we get to enjoy the fruits of life, knowing that we're only experiencing those things because our parents didn't
Minna, (tiktok)
When you're first gen, daughter of both hispanics and moved out for college but feel guilty bc every time you facetime your parents you see your dad getting older and your mom getting more tired but here I am living out the life they never could when they were my age.
loli, (tiktok)
The great irony of growing up is that it's often once you leave your parents' home that you understand them the most. You get less angry; they get less anxious.
Scaachi Koul, "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter"
My parents already know I'm bereft of their culture, that their son is almost as Frank or Bill as any other American, but they also believe this is necessary: that if their son is to become president, it won't happen while he is wearing a turban. They're willing to surrender their culture in order to assure my success, which means the price of my inclusion here is our alienation from each other.
Jaswinder Bolina, "Of Color"
I'm always filled with a mixed bag of feelings when I get to take my mum to these beautiful experiences of wellness of relaxation of self care, these luxuries that she wasn't afforded in her earlier life. It's because I acknowledge a privilege I have because of their sacrifices but then it's also sadness because at age 62 this is the first time she's experiencing these things that many of us do take for granted.
Maggie Zhou, (tiktok)
I use myself as an example for my children. I tell them, "Look, you both are from here [U.S.]; you both have the opportunity to study. Maybe we do not have the best [life] financially, but with your good grades you can obtain scholarships.... That [way] you both do not have to clean offices tomorrow..."
Carmen Valdez, “Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates”
They need a career, so they don't have to do the things that we do; cleaning toilets, working at night, putting their lives at risk.
Carmen Valdez, “Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates”
"Look how life is here. There are children that are walking around without shoes. So that you can value what you have [in U.S.]....How those children wish they had what you have."
Carmen Valdez, “Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates”
"During the weekends I will take [my pre-teen son] to my work. Well he does not work hard, right, but I tell him to study so that he does not have to come work outside under the sun."
Carmen Valdez, “Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates”
My parents are not special people, they're ordinary, and one of my problems is that I'm expecting perfection from ordinary people. They're not saints or masters of knowledge just people, people who have children, which last time I checked, required no proficiency test. People who continue to make mistakes attempt to learn from them and repeat, until death.
Jessica George, "Maame"
We grow up fast. Not by force, but because we are needed.
I think sometimes we're needed for the wrong reasons.
Jessica George, "Maame"
One Texas mother reportedly worried about younger children who may or may not understand the images they saw on the news and become terrified that, "They're going to take my mom."
Carmen Valdez, “Mexican Immigrant Parents’ Hopes for Their Children and Parenting Strategies in Different Immigration Climates”
My father says you remember the smell of your country no matter where you are but only recognize it when you're far away.
Aglaja Veteranyi, "Warum das Kind in der Polenta kocht"
We would always go to parties and stuff, not a lot of church stuff but parties with a lot of piñatas, and I always had fun connecting with family you don't usually see
Luz
I'm not white, no, but I'm just close enough that I could be, and just far enough that you know I'm not. I can check off the diversity box for you and I don't make you nervous - at least not on the surface. I'm the whole package!
Scaachi Koul, "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter"