Corporate America has this effect on you. It makes you cautious of every word you say, push away parts of yourself deemed too political, and only focus on the mission of the institution, the purpose of this monotonous entity. Your only purpose is to oil the machine, and this never ending road to growth doesn’t allow perspectives too unconventional or personal. As long as you keep your head down and continue churning, you get to stay.
What if the point of life is not growth, but the opposite? What if instead of accumulating and amassing, the point is to contribute and give?
On nights I feel inadequate, like my day persona doesn’t live up to my internal vision - I remind myself: I will always be an immigrant.1
I will always remember where I came from. The last memory I have before leaving my birth country was riding in the back of a yellow cab and turning my head to see that eggshell painted apartment complex slowly fade from my vision. I had not realized what I would leave behind, cultural nuances with a collective undertone that remain in ShenZhen, as if waiting for me to return and reclaim their vitality.
The first house I lived in as an immigrant was a beige townhouse with metal roof panels and white rimmed doors, lined by palm trees and grass lawns. Gazing out suburban window shutters, I found rows of plain townhouses instead of skyscrapers and glistening city lights. What reflected in my iris was not the same community I grew up seeing. Instead of laundry on clothes lines, I smelt dull carpet and dried soap. My ears echoed with recorded laugh tracks from American sitcoms and garbage trucks, replacing the local market noise and familiar neighbors I grew up with.
As I type this, I remain an immigrant, two decades into settling in this country. I am now in the untamed city of NYC, vastly different from the suburbs of West Palm Beach. I love an apartment complex, the kind of home large enough for a family, small enough to know your community. The kind of home found only in China. Situated above small mom-and-pop shops, its wide windows provide a panoramic view of the closest malls, office buildings, and public transit. My favorite part was the sight of people, where I got to witness anonymous lives that entered and exited while idealizing stories of their journeys.
Being an immigrant teaches you to observe, to please the host, thank your allies, always serve yourself last at family gatherings, because you can always wait a little bit longer to be satisfied.
This delay in hunger has driven much of my professional life, while the suppressed impulse for more manifested in my personal relationships. The catch to being alive is that when you flourish in one area, you’ll lack in another. Career success and close-knit friendships don’t always pair together, unless you define success by your own values and live fully with what you are given.
Being a Millennial immigrant means closing my ‘foreign’ self and embracing my foreign '‘self’.’ It means marrying parental expectations with platonic acceptance, releasing traditional values for progressive ones, all while working towards “mastering my craft.”
The immigrants that toiled for the longest hours to provide for their families are the ones that do it not for visibility, but necessity. They are the ones that go unrecognized, seeking income for the sole purpose of putting food on the table, not engagement metrics or number of views.
An immigrant’s life is always defined by their first language, how they moved through the world pre-assimilation, that ghost of their current self, or that of an angel representing their deepest desires.
On nights I am seeking home, I think nostalgia is the sister I never had, but always wanted. She calls me up occasionally through LiuYiFei’s characters, JolinTsai’s music, or Mami’s food. I miss her dearly and adore her endlessly.
Sometimes I wonder where my immigration will lead me next. I’m still not sure. This language I’ve adopted is a culture my body is still learning to belong in. As an artist, I question what film, what dance, what art I am meant to birth. As the passing days travel through my memory, I remember I have self belief, a conviction that is only mine to root in, and a voice only I can speak.
Immigrant: a person living in a country other than that of his or her birth.
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