If you grew up in an immigrant family, then you will understand what I am about to say, but if not then read at your own discretion; you have been WARNED.
1. Family - Growing up an immigrant or as a first-generation American, family was and always will be the topmost priority in your life. Your experiences included parents having the extended family over for dinners, all the adults sat and ate their meals at the ornate dining table Dad had bought from the Room Store, while Mom would tell you to guide your siblings and cousins to somewhere where the adults couldn't be bothered. This usually meant huddling up in our rooms and sharing our time at school that week or planning when to convince our parents to collectively take us to Chuck E. Cheese's.
2. Unnecessarily High Expectations - Our parents always had the highest expectations for us, and growing up, our parents were only concerned with two things: school and good grades. Our parents believed that if we didn't go to school, we wouldn't have good grades, and if there were no good grades, then it meant we weren't going to college and if we weren't going to college, our lives would basically go to shit. This is very much true; our parents were far less involved in our extracurricular life than our school life, and that is why we cherish the moments when they, along with our extended families, watch us achieve something academically.
3. Our Parents's Accents - Our parents are not from America, therefore they are not well versed in the many dialects of the American English language. Yes, it's comical at certain times but it's also annoying, because they know that they have an accent and sometimes they intentionally say words wrong to mess with us, but we can all agree that growing up, our peers always asked us one question: "Why do your parents speak funny?"
4. Sleepovers - These were the most cherished moments in our childhoods. Sleepovers did not mean that you could go over to you best friend's house, instead we looked forward to the moments when our cousins could either come stay at our place or we could go to their's. Yes, this did come with a bit of a disapproval from our parents who seemed to get along fine with our aunts up front but behind their backs would always discuss how they didn't agree the way our cousins were being raised and vice versa.
5. Obnoxiously Patriotic - We were always overly patriotic, always knowing more facts and history about the U.S. than most of our peers, and when the 4th of July came by, we'd be the kids to ask our parents to buy expensive fireworks and host 4th of July parties, but that rarely happened. Till this day, we still claim to be more American because we have had the rare experience to grow up in two distinctly different environments at the same time.
Our different backgrounds and ideologies allowed us to grow uniquely different from our peers. Our experiences were comical and dramatic and that's what made our stories fun and entertaining. Growing up in immigrant households isn't bad; it's part of a learning curve, and we all got to experience two distinct cultures coexisting at once. Some of us embraced both and some of us didn't but we could all agree that these particular experiences are some of many that we can all relate to.
