I have never gone camping.
During my short stint in Girl Scouts[1], my parents never allowed me to go on troop camping trips. During our family vacations to national parks, we always stayed in a motel in an outlying town. Though we loved the outdoors, we always slept indoors.
Now that I’m well into adulthood, I’m Too Old to go camping. Despite the pressures of living on the West Coast (the Best Coast!) and REI’s endless advertising efforts, I’m convinced my camping window has closed.
People wonder why. I usually quip, “My parents didn’t immigrate to the US so their only child would sleep outside!”
Both of my parents were born in China, but moved to Taiwan before their first birthdays. Their parents were able to get out of China before the Communists took over. In Taiwan they lived under a military dictatorship. Everyone was poor.
No one had plumbing in their homes. It was up to the sons to bring buckets of water from the town well back home. Balance was essential when using the outhouses. Meat was a luxury and served only on special occasions.
One of my grandmothers did not have the opportunity to attend any school.[2] She only started to learn how to read Chinese after she got married. Her husband was a teacher.
My mother attended school, but society expected her to be a beautiful and dutiful mother.
The educational opportunities in the United States exceeded the imaginations of both women. My grandmother was illiterate. My mother got an associate’s degree. I became a physician.
Such was the promise of the United States.
Only after my dad moved to Seattle did I learn about one of his favorite songs, Abraham, Martin And John, by Dion. Released in 1968, this song was a tribute to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy. Dion mourned, “[They] freed a lot of people but it seems the good they die young.”
The result of the 2016 Presidential election was dispiriting for my father. The man who would become the 45th (and 47th) President was unlike Abraham, Martin, and John.
My parents didn’t immigrate to the United States for this sh!t. What drew them to the United States were the ideals of democracy, justice, and freedom.
Didn’t you love
The things that they stood for
Didn’t they try to
Find some good
For you and me
“They don’t make music like that anymore,” my dad lamented when he introduced me to Dion’s song. The music changed; the nation changed.
We write, rally, and protest to denounce the federal government’s cruel and unjust actions. We recognize the humanity in our friends and neighbors, even as the government fails to do the same. We advocate for people in our various and overlapping communities.
We also write, rally, and protest to honor the people who came before us. Our immigrant parents recognized the value of democracy, justice, and freedom. These were abstract ideas that existed only within the confines of their imaginations. In the United States these worthy ideals promised to manifest in three dimensions. They strived and worked so what seemed possible to them could be real for us.
(Thanks, Dad. I miss you.)
[1] I’m not sure why my mom enrolled me in Girl Scouts. I suspect she had two reasons: (1) Because I didn’t have siblings, she wanted me to have more friends. (2) This seemed like a very American activity. The pressure to assimilate was great. I eventually asked to drop out of Girl Scouts. Disappointed, she asked why. “I don’t fit in,” I said. At the time I could not articulate why I felt uncomfortable: All the other girls were white.
[2] I never got to meet this grandmother, as she died when my dad was only 21 years old. Despite her inability to read, she apparently picked up languages with ease. What she lacked in literacy, she made up for in emotional and social intelligence.
Maria Yang, MD 