Index:
00:20 – Pressure to have kids, satellite upbringing, restaurant operations
3:30 – Covid restaurant shutdown
5:20 – Marriage reasons, satellite child trauma
9:30 – Expectations
11:15 – Satellite Child, change in lifestyle from China, food anxiety for the previous generation
15:15 – Financial stability during Covid, buy an apartment to not pay rent anymore as the ultimate immigrant dream
18:30 – High school education in China, preference for sons
25:15 – Restaurant labor is something you don’t want to do
28:30 – Fujianese food, kids helping in restaurant
30:45 – AAPI hate crimes, Chinese people as easy targets
34:15 – “Don’t want to cause trouble” mentality, separate kinships within China
36:50 – Community and sense of belonging, minorities should work with each other, future plans
*Note: Interview contains account of physical violence
Transcript:
Today is June 15th. The time is 8:36 PM and my name is Jenny Cheng. Today I’m interviewing Person E. Tell me a little about your parent’s Chinese restaurant business.
Person E: I was born on October 17, 2001. I am currently 20 years old. I’m currently a college student. I live in New York. Actually, when I grew up, I wasn’t very close with my parents because a couple months after I was born, my mom sent me to China to live with my grandparents so my grandparents could take care of me, which is like a very common thing among immigrants who are working, and they can’t take care of the kids. It’s just send them off to the grandparents. From what I understand, I don’t think my mom, not that she ever wanted kids, but more like she wasn’t ready to have kids. I think my mom was very unprepared to have kids. I think it’s more of the pressure of her being around 32 I think, of her being word 32, no kids yet. Both sides of the family, both grandparents, were pushing her to have kids soon. I know this because my mom always talks about how some of her relatives their kids are a lot older than me and my brother, they’re already getting married, things like that when I was in high school. So, my mom chose to put the pressure on me to have kids a little earlier than she did, she would say things like, “Oh, I want you to have kids when you’re 26 so that it balances out in the family,” I suppose.
I grew up my grandma in China until I think it was like around four or five years old and that’s when I met my mom for the first time. I remember meeting my mom for the first time was when she came back to China to go pick me and my brother up. When I came back to US, I missed my grandma a lot, so I was a lot more connected to my grandparents than I was to my own parents. My dad worked six days a week, and he has like a restaurant, the Chinese American kind of restaurant that serves to American non-Chinese people, the whole General Tso chicken, lo mein, things like that. My dad, he would never let us eat like the food that he made at his restaurant, but he served those that that kind of food at his restaurant. I barely ever saw my dad, only ever saw him on Sundays. He had like an apartment behind the restaurant. Since it was like far away from our home in Chinatown, he slept there six days a week and came home only on Sundays.
My parents, it’s not that they had marriage issues, it wasn’t anything like that. That’s just the way it is, because when I tell people that my dad doesn’t come home and stuff, people think that my parents are divorced, things like that. No, my dad, he works 12-hour days, and then he sleeps in his restaurant and so that the next day he can just like walk to the front and start operations. Then Sundays was when he came home. On Sundays, he would mostly come home and sleep the whole day because that was how tired he was. Me and my dad never had that, [with] my brother, father-son relationship or with me, father-daughter kind of relationship. My dad actually died last year, I was 19 that at that time, my brother was 17 years old, still high school. My dad died last year, I’m not exactly sure why because he never had any health issues.
For COVID, he’s been working the way he has been working for the past 20 plus years and then during COVID, he relaxed a lot. He came home and he basically just chilled at home and sleep a lot. So, he had like a really, really long vacation because of COVID. Then going back to work a few months after the restaurant opened, he died when he came back home. I think part of it is also that he just worked himself too much, to the point where, I guess, the body gave up on him. For my dad, when he died, I wasn’t as affected by it as the way my mom was. Not to say that I didn’t love my dad or anything, we just never kind of had a relationship. I don’t want to say that I’m devastated that my father died, I think it was just more so like, “Oh, that man that gives my mom money and take care of me died.”
Something kind of interesting to happen after my dad died, on my mom side. she has like a younger brother. He and his son, who is my cousin, didn’t really have a good relationship together. I think when he saw the way how it seemed like me and my brother didn’t care, he wanted to have a better relationship with his kids, because he saw how after my dad died my brother was literally playing games on his phone and I was working. I think he was kind of affected by how like it seemed like me and my brother just didn’t care that my dad died. He wanted a better relationship with his kids, and he didn’t want [what happened to us to happen to him] because it’s pretty evident for him that he doesn’t have a good relationship with his own children. I guess he felt really upset that me and my brother didn’t care. I mean it’s not like he can scold us until that we’re being bad children or anything like that. We just didn’t have a relationship with him and that’s it. It wasn’t a good relationship, it wasn’t a bad relationship, it just wasn’t a relationship. That’s all that it was.
For my dad, it’s more so around the time he and mom got married, he was just ready to like to settle down because my grandparents were telling him to settle down. I think for him, he just never really cared, in a way, of trying to have romance in his life, of think about having kids in the future, his plans for the future, it was more so just, “I just need to settle down to make my parents happy, have kids with this wife.” My parents actually met through a matchmaker. My mom, she had citizenship and my dad didn’t have citizenship so marrying her would mean that my dad could stay here longer. My dad had a restaurant so for my mom, marrying him meant that she wouldn’t have to work, so it’s like a win-win for both of them. My parents dated for a few months before getting married. That’s just a very normal thing. I think part of it is also these kind of marriages are very calculated. I get along with you, you get along with me, alright cool. You have this have this, alright, let’s have kids. I wouldn’t say they didn’t love each other, obviously, I would say that my parents did love each other but it’s these kind of marriages to me is kind of cold. The way it goes about it, you just look at what this person can provide for you, what that person can survive for you, what are your goals together, and if you can get along with this person and if you can then you would just get married and that’s it. It’s not like American culture, where you date for like five years and then you get married and then you have kids two years later. No, you date each other for three months, get married, have kids one month later.
I’ve heard that kids who were raised by extended relatives, such as grandparents in a different country like China, are called satellite kids. How do you think being a satellite child growing up affected your relationship with your parents? How do you think your upbringing is different from that of other Americans?
Person E: I talked to my therapist about this actually. She works with Chinatown, so she has a lot of Chinese patients who have the very common satellite experience. I can tell you for sure, that I love my grandma more than I love my mom. Me and my mom don’t have a very good relationship. We’re very much cold to each other, there basically isn’t a relationship. My therapist says that when children are like, children are separated from their parents and then you grow up thinking these two people who are not your parents, you view them as a parent in a way, and then you take them away from that, that kind of trauma of coming back to the US and then you’re no longer seeing your grandparents anymore, that causes a lot of childhood trauma for a lot of these kind of satellite children.
Now a lot of the times, you tend to grow closer to your grandparents than you are to your actual parent. It also depends though, because like the longer you spend in your grandparents and then you take them away, imagine like all of a sudden you can’t see your mom and dad anymore, can’t see them anymore, you can’t talk to them anymore, like it’s kind of like that.
It’s also a different environment, a different setting.
Person E: All of a sudden, your mom comes to China to go pick you up and then you take that airplane back here and you can’t see your grandma for the next couple of years. Unless you go back to China and go visit her, but you’re in this new house with these new parents. Even though they are your parents, you see them as like new parents now. These strangers are now taking care of you and these strangers are the people that you actually call mom and dad.
Do you know your parent’s envisioned goals for you and your sibling? What do your parents think is the ultimate American dream?
Person E: Obviously, my parents came to the US so that me and my brother could have like a better education. My relationship with my parents, they more so saw me as someone who is capable and that I didn’t need like any babying, they didn’t need a baby me anymore. They saw me as capable of figuring out what I want. To them, they think that what I want is very similar to what they want, as in a career, money, stability. I think for them, they more so want me to you know get married, settle down, and have kids. I think they have higher expectations for my brother because he is a boy, and I am a girl. Growing up my mom never saw me as someone who was capable, as someone who could be someone because she always saw me as someone who was always second place against my brother. She always viewed my brother better than me even though he was younger than me. She just viewed my brother as going to be more successful than I would be. But now she I think she realizes that my brother had too much babying and I had too little babying.
So, my brother is very sheltered, he a lot of internal issues with himself and socially. He has a lot of social anxiety and social problems with other people. He’s not very good at communicating with other people because he always expected my mom to take care of him. He didn’t have to like to raise a finger and as for me, she kind of ignored me because I was a lot older. I think that caused me to have that barrier between me and her. I think now, my mom definitely she’s me as being more successful than my brother but she also sees me as being a lot more colder to her than my brother. I don’t have as much of a good relationship to my mother.
You mentioned earlier that your uncle after seeing how you and your brother dealt with your father’s death, decided that he needed to repair his relationship with his son. Does your uncle also work in a Chinese American To-go restaurant? Do you think it’s very common for a lot of children whose families work in this business to have a lot of similar issues? Why do you think these specific issues are so prevalent?
Person E: About the last part, I think it’s just the culture. Back then, our parents, they couldn’t fight with each other, they didn’t have any problems with their parents, and they couldn’t fight with their siblings because all that they’re thinking about is like their next meal. They literally don’t have time to the about their problems, they literally can’t. I think for us, we’re privileged enough to where we don’t have to think about what’s going to be our next meal, we don’t have to think about food anxiety, we don’t have food anxiety, we don’t have money problems so we oh we’re not thinking about that constantly. Our parents are thinking about that, we’re not thinking about that, so we have the privilege of not liking how our parents treat us.
For my parents, especially, I don’t think my parents was ready to have kids or even wanted to have kids. I think they just felt pressured by parents and cultural standards of having kids that they decide to have kids but I don’t think they truly wanted to have kids, nor did my mom… She wasn’t very close to me as a child, so I think she just didn’t want to have kids.
As for my uncle, he actually doesn’t own a Chinese restaurant. He’s actually, I would say, successful for an immigrant. He went to College in the US and he sure what he works as, but he works at airline sort of company. He probably does data entry or something like that. For him, his kids also they went to China live with their grandparents and then came back to US. I have two cousins: I’m talking about the older one. The older one is the one who has the most issues with his father. I think he felt like he was neglected growing up and he doesn’t really have a good relationship with father because his father sees education as the most important thing. After education, he sees like money [as the most important thing] and my cousin, not that stupid, but his father sees him as someone who is not very educated and not very capable of going to school and not very successful. He doesn’t see his son as someone who could be successful, so that’s mostly the problems that they had growing up. How were his grades, how were his schoolwork, his education, and things like that. They just have very different viewpoints of what they want and stuff.
Would you say your parents were able to achieve their dream in America, to achieve financial stability? How do you think your envisioned future, your goals, and your values differ from theirs?
Person E: From my parents, they definitely had like financial stability. Even during COVID, they’ve never complained about like how COVID is affecting their business. It was more so like, “Oh, we have the money. We have the money to close our restaurant. We have the money to close the restaurants.” So, it wasn’t like they were suffering during COVID. I mean, yes, they didn’t have income during COVID, but they weren’t going bankrupt because of COVID. They even stated that they had enough money to get up take a break and close the restaurant down. So, they definitely achieved financial stability, they even brought apartment together. I think that’s like the ultimate immigrant dream, to buy an apartment and not have to worry about rent anymore, so you don’t have to worry about rent. They have an apartment together and I think after my dad died, my mom’s financial instability comes from the fact that she doesn’t work. It comes from the fact that she’s not working and she’s just living off the inheritance that she got from my dad, like his life insurance and how much money she sold the restaurant for, things like that.
For me, I do seem like money as like a big factor like my parents would see it. I don’t have financial stability, especially like not as a student in college. I obviously don’t have financial stability right now. Obviously, money is a really big, important thing to me. Since I am in school, I have a lot more options than my parents had. Like my options are a lot more bigger, I can choose to go into any career I want to. I can go on Google, search up, “How am I supposed to become a doctor? or “How do I become a plumber?” I can search up anything online and I have a lot more options than my parents did. I’m not stressed about money. I’m not stressed about being broke for the rest of my life.
What skillsets did your parents have and why do you think your parents ultimately decided to go into the Chinese American takeout restaurant business instead of choosing another path the same way your uncle did?
Person E: Why are my parents went to Chinese restaurant business was because all of our relatives did that. Everyone they knew they did that. Obviously, they can open a Chinese restaurant for Chinese people in Chinatown but my dad, when he was doing job to job, going around trying to get citizenship, he’s going like job to job saving up money, that was what he was doing. He was working at Chinese takeout restaurants; he was working there he got all the skillset to do like to cook and everything to manage the Chinese takeout restaurant sort of thing. That’s what everyone did, so when my dad finally got the money, he opened his own takeout restaurant. My uncle, he went to college, he had he had the opportunity to get educated, so that’s why he had that job. But my parents, they couldn’t didn’t have money to go to school. They were, I guess, too old to go to school.
My dad actually graduated high school; he actually has high school education. For us, that does not sound impressive, high school education is the highest being highest education is not very impressive. But for where my dad is from, that is very impressive. It shows that he is he’s very well educated in that community. He’s very well educated and I’m sure he had the potential of going to college, he just didn’t have money or anything like that. My mom only has a third-grade education, that’s very normal, to have up to elementary school education. Most people don’t even graduate elementary school because they don’t have the money, it cost money to go to school. If you don’t have money to go to school, then you can’t go to school. You’re going to have to go work on a farm or something. That’s what my mom did, she had to go work on the farm because she didn’t have money to go to school and she wasn’t smart enough, I guess, to continue school. Unlike my uncle, who’s very smart and worked very hard and then came to the US and he managed to get into college.
You mentioned earlier that your mom treats you and your brother differently. Do you think the Chinese patriarchal society and culture plays any role in how boys in Chinese families are treated differently than girls?
Person E: I think [it’s] not that like most Chinese people want boys, I think it’s more that in China, with the one child policy, having a boy means that they’re going to continue the family line. Your family won’t get cut off. But if you’re having a girl, she’ll get married to another family, produce some children for her husband’s family, not for your family. Your family just stops, the [generational] line just stops there. There are no more grandchildren or anything like that, because your daughter will no longer be your daughter in the future, she’ll be someone else’s wife. I think for most Chinese people, that patriarch sort of thing, with males being more valuable, I don’t want to say it’s every Chinese culture, but that’s just the culture. I’m sure my mom growing up, her parents treated her brother probably much better than her. They probably felt that my mom was not as smart as her siblings, as her brother. Whether or not my mom will admit that she likes boys more than girls, I think it’s just a very obvious subconscious sort of thing. It’s that male will continue the family, the female will cut down the family. You need a male to continue the family. It’s kind of why our grandma, she was kind of praised for having three boys. Because she was able to produce three boys.
Also, another thing is that for Chinese people, when a woman can’t produce a son, it’s her fault. It’s somehow [that] there’s something wrong with her body. So, when females can’t produce boys, there must be something wrong with your uterus, it’s your DNA that is not able to produce boys. But in reality, it’s literally just the genes. No, it’s not even genes, it’s just chance. Fifty percent, you going to get boys, fifty percent you’ll get girls. If you produce three girls then you get three girls, that’s just chance. That’s just chance.
Do you have any relatives who live in China now? Would you or your family want to retire or move back to China at any point?
Person E: Not that I know of. I don’t think there are any family members that are still in China, or not I know of. I know my grandma; she was in China for a really long time. She came back after my dad died and she still wants to go back to China, she doesn’t like it here. But it’s also that if she goes back to China, given her age, and she passed away passes away, there will be no one in China that will know that she passed away or will go take care of funeral arrangements. If she passes away in China, no one’s going to know that she passed away, there’s no one there.
Did all your extended family move to America in the last few decades?
Person E: Yeah, I think so. I can’t think of any family member that are still in China. Yeah, I actually can’t think of any.
Do you know if your entire family moved to America for opportunities? To them, what does America have that China does not have?
Person E: I think, yeah, I think most of it is opportunity. And then, the fact that most of our families here. There’s no point in staying in China if no one in your family is in China, I know that one of my cousin-in-law, she’s younger so she comes from that the Chinese new generation of being able to have money and being able to like start businesses and stuff like that. She married my cousin, and she has like she has a kid with him, and they have a restaurant in Florida. They have a very nice house and everything. I guess it’s a lot cheaper there and everything, and they have like a very, very nice house, like much better than the way she probably grew up. Because she is from that younger generation where she probably has a lot of friends who have nice families and nice homes in China. She does go back to China very often, but I think she does like the fact that in the US, her husband has money, her husband’s family has this Chinese restaurant. It might not be like a very prestigious or very fancy kind of job, but she has a very nice home. She has a nice family; she has nice things. She’s able to buy nice… she’s has a very large closet with a lot of fancy clothes so she’s able to afford all those things. So, I think she’s satisfied.
Would you, your brother, or any relatives around your age, also consider working in the restaurant business knowing that you have you know extended family members who do own successful businesses, so they are there if advice is needed, if that support is needed? Why or why not?
Person E: I don’t think so because my parents put a very heavy emphasis on [how much] the restaurant businesses sucks. It’s very long hours, it’s physical labor for a very, very long time, and the pay isn’t worth the physical labor. So, there is always that heavy emphasis that this is something you don’t want to. We’re just doing this to pay the bills, that’s it. But it’s a lot of physical labor so I don’t think anyone wanted to do this. Growing up, I did want to become a Cook, those TV Cooks, the fancy kind of Cooks, at nice restaurants and stuff. But my dad, he saw Cooks as physical labor, it’s very demanding, and it’s very tough. He was like, “Absolutely not. This is not something you want to do or anything like that.” I know my cousin, my uncle’s, the [uncle] who went to college, he is currently working at a bakery. I don’t think he has too much of a tough job, if he’s working at a bakery. It’s not like the Chinese takeout restaurants. But I’m sure if his dad knew that he was doing physical labor, not that it’s looked down upon, it’s like, “Why? Why would you want to do that? Why do you want to do that?
It’s unattractive.
Person E: Yeah, it’s a very unattractive career path.
I want to talk a bit more about this food. You mentioned earlier that your dad did not want you to eat food that he made in his restaurant. Why do you think that is?
Person E: He thinks that it’s unnutritious, it’s very unhealthy, it’s a lot of oils, it’s very salty. He did bring home food, bring home white rice, and some side dishes on the side so my mom wouldn’t have to cook for dinner if both of them came home late at night. But that [his restaurant food] is not “Chinese” Chinese food. Americans see the Chinese takeout places as Chinese food, “I want Chinese tonight.” But for Chinese people, that’s not our Chinese food, that’s not the food that we eat at home. That’s the food that we takeout. For me, I only ever eat at the Chinese takeout restaurants if I’m too drunk and I just want late night, something to eat, super late night and I don’t want to cook anything. It’s very greasy, it’s very oily. That’s not what we grow up eating. That’s not something that our parents actually cook for us. That’s something they bring home because they work too late, and they can’t cook us dinner.
To you, what is authentic Chinese food? What do you eat at home? What are the foods that your dad would approve of his kids eating?
Person E: My parents come from the province of Fuzhou. When you look at American Chinese food, you see oil, grease, it’s like shiny meat. For Fujianese food, it’s much more plain. There is flavor but it’s like very simple, it’s a lot more simple. There’s a lot of soups If you go online and see images of Fujianese food, you’ll see a lot of pictures of food that are white colored, like dumplings, certain kind of noodles. The kind of rice that we eat, the porridge that we eat in the morning, it’s very plain and bland food. That’s how the way I can describe it, very plain and bland food. It’s also very cheap, one of the best Fujianese food that we eat is called banmian (拌面), which is like a peanut butter noodles. That’s which sounds disgusting but it’s actually very good. It was $2.00 and I think it’s around $3 right now because of inflation, but it was like $2 at most. It’s very cheap, gets you full. That’s the whole point. You’re full off of it. It’s not like we can eat these kind of things all the time.
I guess for my dad, fancy food would be something like steamed lobsters with garlic and stuff. Steamed garlic and ginger lobster, that’s something my dad would love, love, love eating. As well as probably like steamed fish. A lot of food that we eat aren’t even fried, it’s mostly steamed or boiled. We don’t even try the food, very rarely are the food is ever fried.
Did your parents ask you and your brother to work in the Chinese restaurant?
Person E: My dad would absolutely not let me and my brother work there. He thinks it’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth. I know that a lot of other Chinese kids, they work at their parent’s restaurants to make it like easier for their parents. Their parents just put them to work, and you don’t really work for pay. But my dad just saw me and my brother as trouble so it’s not worth. I can go on the phone and like take orders from my dad but my dad’s going to be like, “No, no, no, no, no. You’re going to mess it up.” Things like that, it’s like it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Do you think the recent rise in Asian American Pacific Islander hate crimes has affected the Chinese restaurant business? What is you and your family’s personal experience since the start of the pandemic and the escalation in reported hate crimes?
Person E: I don’t think affected my dad’s business per se because his restaurant is in front of a police station and he closed his late at night, so a lot of his customers are the police officers that work across the street. They’re working late at night; they can just get Chinese food really quick at my dad’s place and then they go back to work. I wouldn’t say that there’s necessary a lot of negative effect on our business. But I know for a lot of other Chinese people, there probably is a lot of negative way go attention to their business.
In terms of hate crime, a lot of people see Chinese people as easier targets, not because they hate Chinese people for causing COVID but more so, the way we perceive trouble. A lot of Chinese people tend to run away from trouble because we don’t want trouble, we don’t want to cause any problems, we don’t call the police or anything like that. A lot of Chinese people let people who do these negative things to them, let them get away with it. In a way, a lot of other people would see Chinese people as easy targets. I got robbed the train once and I got punched the other week by a homeless man. He punched me twice because I bumped into him. I told you, yeah, I told you.
Oh, I don’t remember.
Person E: I was on the street, and I accidentally bumped into a homeless man, and he punched me in the shoulder twice and then he spat in front of me. I bumped into him, that was my bad and I apologized to him, but I was in shocked that he had to punch me. Last year, my bag got stolen on the train, they took it off of me. They literally took my bag off of me, I was in shock that happened like in front of me, that has never happened. They grab your bag, and they pull it off of you, then they run away, that blatant thief is like, what the… I know one of my other friends, he was robbed to where he was like naked on the street. They took everything off of him. I don’t even know if they had a real gun, but they pointed a gun to him and they took everything off him. They took his shoes, they took his hoodie, they took his pants. He was in his underwear, walking home barefooted, because they literally robbed him like that. I’ve never heard of things like that.
I know for a fact that these kind of Asian hate stuff is real, and it is happening because I hear these [stories] and because it happens to me. How it’s so blatant like that and how people around me, these things happen to them too, like my friend who got robbed to the point where he’s almost naked, to where he’s in his underwear walking home barefooted. He lost his phone, he had lost his bag, they took everything off of him. That’s kind of…
It’s unnecessary.
Person E: It’s never like bad. I don’t live in a bad neighborhood, actually. He lives in my neighborhood. We don’t live in a bad neighborhood. Our neighborhood is pretty safe, most of the residents are older people and nearby is the Chinese community. This has never happened to where it’s so… to see us as such easy targets. Another thing that I don’t really appreciate about our culture is how we let people get away with it because we don’t want problems, we don’t want to cause trouble. A lot of Chinese people don’t call the police or anything like that. It doesn’t help, it makes people agree that we are very easy targets.
Do you think the solution then is to encourage the Chinese community and Asian American communities to speak up and to call the police and ask for help more than they have?
Person E: Yeah, I think that if these things happen to you, then you should obviously report it. If there is more reporting, people will know that this is happening, these are the problems, these things are happening more often. But a lot of Chinese people, they let people get away with it because they don’t want to cause problems. Sometimes, because immigration issues, things like that, they think it’s going to interfere that. Or if you’re elderly, you going to think that people are going to retaliate and they’re going to fight back against you. I think if you just report it and stuff, they’ll know that, “Oh, this is happening.” The fact that people know that this is happening, we need to protect ourselves, and if people see that we are protecting ourselves and we’re fighting back, they won’t target us as much as they would be.
The reason why they’re targeting us is not because people think, “Oh, because you’re Chinese, you caused the Coronavirus. I hate you and I’m racist.” I mean, that is the case sometimes, but most of the times, it’s because they think that we’re easy targets. That’s why they target us, they’re not targeting us to get revenge because we caused COVID. They’re targeting us because we’re easy targets.
What do you think is the relationship between Chinese and Asian American communities, with other ethnic communities in New York City? Or even among Asians, what do you think relationship is like between Chinese and non-Chinese Asian Americans?
Person E: Honestly, I think for generations of Chinese people, we tend to keep to we ourselves. We’re a very close community, we tend to trust each other more than we would trust… Even within our community, there’s like the separation between like Cantonese people and Fujianese people. Even within our own communities, a lot of us are separated because we trust each other, we trust our own people. Our own people as in people that are coming from the same neighborhood, same province, same city as us more so than anywhere else. Even within the whole country of China, my dad would trust his own Fujianese people than someone who is Cantonese. It’s not that he doesn’t like Cantonese people but it’s just…
It’s kinship.
Person E: Yeah, it’s kinship. Like, “You come from down the block where I grew up. I would rather help you than someone who’s coming from another state [province] in China.” It’s that, “We’re family sort of thing.” It’s very much like that, even within the Chinese community, we are a lot more separated than people would perceive us as.
For other communities in New York, in my opinion, there’s a lot of racism when it comes to Chinese people and the African American community. It’s not that it’s not as bad as it really is [?] I think it’s more that because we’re minority. Minorities needs to stick up for each other and be together because we’re minorities. We need to work with each other than against each other. When you see these kind of things on the news where it’s like, “Black kid hits old Asian lady,” when you see these kind of things on the news, I guess a lot of people to see that and then go against each other because it’s like, “Why am I always seeing black kid hit old Chinese lady? Why am I always seeing that on the news? I think that’s just the media pit minorities against each other. I think minority [communities] be a team more so than like against each other but that’s like the narrative that the media always has between the Chinese community and African American community.
In what neighborhoods do you think Chinese Americans are the safest? At least in terms of against AAPI hate crimes, would you think that the different Chinatowns in New York City are safer than places that do not have as many Chinese American residents?
Person E: I wouldn’t say that necessarily. I think for Chinatowns, it is safer because Chinese people tend to not cause a lot of crimes. There isn’t very much… Chinese people aren’t known to cause burglaries, cause hate crimes, things like that. Chinese are just not known to cause crime like that. I guess within our own community, then yeah, it is a lot safer. But the thing is, a lot of people target these kinds of community because it’s a cluster of elderly Chinese people that live in these kind of homes. The thing is that, like for burglaries, especially around my neighborhood, I think a lot of people targeting Chinese people know that the Chinese elderly, they wouldn’t call the police. They keep a lot of cash at home because they don’t trust the bank. That’s very common, it is that Chinese people don’t trust the bank, so they keep a lot of cash at home. I think it’s because of the Great Depression, things like that, how the bank loses your money and things like that. They’re scared the bank is going to lose your money, so they rather keep cash at home. So, a lot of burglaries, they would target older Chinese people, rob their homes. There’s a lot of cash there, they’re not going to call the police. They’re very easy I guess, because they’re elderly.
In that way, it wouldn’t be as safe because we’re so close together. But then again, you might think of it as whole problem is because people are targeting Asian people, not that our community isn’t safe. I also notice that [Chinese] communities are a lot more wealthier there’s a lot less crime. Yeah, there is a lot less crime and there’s lot less like hate because everyone just going about their own life. They don’t have like financial issues, so they do these [crimes]. Most of these crimes is because of financial issues. Unfortunately, that’s just the world that we live in. A lot of people don’t have money, they go out doing these crimes because you know they don’t have they need to get by somehow.
Then ultimately, what does being American mean to you?
Person E: Being American means that America is where I grew up, is where I’m born and raised. I live in the US, I go to school in the US, and being American means that I get these kind of privileges that my parents didn’t get growing up. How I’m able to go to school, get an education, I know English. Hopefully, my English is good. That I can get a job, a good career, and I can have a family here and make a stable income here.
Do you plan on staying in the city?
Person E: In New York City? I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I think one day, I want to settle down in another city.
So, you wouldn’t mind being away from your immediate family? Would you want to maintain that extended like kinship network or do you find that to be helpful for you at all?
Person E: Obviously, family is family. I don’t think staying away, as in living somewhere far away from my immediate family is something that I’m concerned about. Yeah, obviously I want to maintain my relationship with my family, whether it’s extended or immediate. Where I want to live is not because of my family but it’s because of both my career, my family, and where I want to settle down. For me, personally, when I think about where I want to settle down. I’m thinking about a city that is a lot more safer than New York, a lot more financially able for me to pay for. Where I want my family to grow up in.
Do you see the Chinese part of your identity as being very important to who you are? Ideally, what you want to live in a place where there is Chinese food, there are Chinese people, there’s Chinese culture, etc.?
Person E: Yeah, for me that’s a must. I want my kids in the future to grow up learning Chinese and to know Chinese. I want them to eat Chinese food. I can’t live without any Chinese food. I have to live within distance to actual Chinese restaurants, and there’s not just one Chinese restaurant, there has to be like a hot pot restaurant, or a barbecue restaurant, there has to be a Chinese dim sum place nearby where I live. Things like that, I have to have that. And Chinese grocery store too, or else I’m just not going to be happy. I need to have these things that I like I’m used to.