Dear Dad,
I’ve written this letter to you, many times, and each time I began with anger speared through the sides of my throat. Isn’t that silly? I write to you knowing that you won't be able to read this. I write to you with a recklessness that's as dangerous as it is liberating. I write to you, it seems, more for myself than for you, so why am I angry at you?
But ah, dad, I think I've figured out the answer. I am angry--but not at you. And I need you to know that.
Dad, do you remember that time we went to the doctor’s for a checkup, and he asked you all these questions about me and you just nodded every time his voice dulled because you knew nodding was a yes, and in America you must say yes, you say yes and you will be okay, they will like you, they won’t ask you too many questions you’re too afraid/confused to answer. Eventually, the doctor asked you if there was any chance I was pregnant. You nodded, grinning, but when I glared, you suddenly stopped bobbing your head and your mouth withdrew to a grimace. “Baba,” I explained to you in Chinese what the doctor had asked. You shook your head so vigorously, I almost laughed. “No no no no,” you stuttered. So the doctor moved on. And I told this story, over and over again, when people asked me about you, because it’s a funny story, you know? So why is it that every time I exaggerate your nods and rush through your “no”s, right before my friends start laughing, suddenly everything tastes bitter and I start feeling tired like I’m on fire because yes, yes, there is anger kindling in my heart?
Dad, do you remember that time we were at the X-ray place, waiting for me to do another medical exam for my uveitis, and we started arguing about the stupid movie they were playing on the TV? You were loud, but not booming. You were loud because you grew up in a rural village between mountain hearts, in the cradle of a valley where you had to shout to be heard over the wind’s songs. Do you remember the man in the corner who stuck his middle finger at us and yelled at us to “speak English, yellow sh**s!”? You got so mad. You didn’t know what he said, but you could tell from my face that he said something bad, so you got mad, and you stood up, and in that moment I was so terrified, dad, because this should not be your fight, this should not be a fight, this should’ve been a question and a quick answer and instead it became aggression to the man's satisfaction. That's all he wanted. A reaction. To match the loud voice. Foreign voice, from a foreign man, choked out in staccatos with words he could not--did not care to--understand.
Dad, I’m angry as I write this letter. So angry that my heart is squashed against my chest because it keeps trying to claw its way through. But I’m not angry at you--no, no. I’m angry at the people who don’t care to understand why nine years later you still cannot speak English. Because I understand their frustration--I really do. When we went to Washington D.C. and you put all our luggage in the wrong shuttle because you didn’t understand what hotels the driver called out; when in the middle of winter you cut me watermelon squares and then asked me to translate the utility guy’s words for you, again, again, watermelon, again… I was so upset. Because I’m impatient, you know? I want you to learn this language. But the people who laugh at you, who yell at you, who try to strike at you because you do not speak this language--they never try to understand your journey. So even when I know where their taunts stem from, I am mad at them. They never saw the cuts stitched into your forearms from months at the warehouse. They never saw your face twitch as you tried to hide the pain stomped into your spine from years of bending over to move pallets of products. They never saw you buy carts full of medicinal creams at CVS because you didn't want to pay a doctor for your coughs.
They never saw you listen to study tapes across state boundaries as you drove products to different stores, still trying to learn enough English to pass your citizenship test because you loved this country even when Chinese operas lingered on your lips. They never saw you flip through the dictionary for hours just to understand every word in the commendation note a teacher wrote for your son. They never saw you choose to live in Claremont so that your children could learn English more quickly from the White majority, even if that means you’ll be isolated in a land punched through with words you don't yet understand. They never saw just how many times you signed up for Adult English classes, only to be snatched away one week in by the suffocating deluges of work. To keep us afloat. To keep us on board, while you’re chest-deep in the waters, pushing our little boat onward even though you never learned how to swim.
Dad: when I write this letter to you, I sag with the weight of an anger I'm not sure I want to defeat. But for the first time, I’ve finished this letter. And I think I can stand up a bit straighter. Because even though you cannot speak English outside of the most basic conversational necessities, you speak something far more important: resilience. You refuse to be underestimated. You refuse to be ignored. You fought to make our lives here something we can be proud of.
So today, I will learn another thing from you: to let go. I will let go of this anger that I feel, towards people who’ve tried to trick you and exploit you and hurt us because they never bothered to understand the story of who you are. Because it’s not worth it. I have better things to hold on to.
Like resilience. Like father, like daughter.
Your daughter,
Diana
