I, like many other people I know, have one parent who is an immigrant from another country while my other parent is American born and raised.
Having this kind of family dynamic is amazing. I love being able to experience both cultures simultaneously and have both sets of traditions be integral parts of how I was raised and who I’ve become. I have a different perspective on many things because I’ve seen them through two different lenses.
I have this wide variety of customs, foods, dances, styles and music that draw from both my American side and the foreign aspect of my life. But this kind of family does present its issues.
Rather than having a family who is focused in one country where we might just live a few miles or a few states away, half of my family lives across the ocean.
When half of your family lives across the world, you do not get to be with them all the time, if at all. When half of your family lives across the world, it’s difficult to keep in touch due to time difference.
Trying to coordinate Skype calls can be really problematic, especially when you have work or school conflicting with availability. It’s not super easy to just fly over to another country, especially trying to travel across the ocean super frequently is very costly and adds up.
So you miss things. Significant things in each other’s lives like weddings, religious events, birthdays, holidays and sometimes, even funerals are spent apart because of the problem with the enormous distance. You miss the little things too, like your baby cousin’s first steps or your uncle’s surgery. And they miss out on things in your life just the same.
I personally did not develop the same relationships with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who live across the ocean as I could with my American ones. But how could I? I am not around to be there to support half of my family. There is only so far that “I’m there in spirit” can really do when you can’t be there to laugh, cry or rejoice with them.
I have a hard time keeping in contact with friends I have in my same country, let alone trying to stay up to date with the foreign part of my family.
Something that I, as well as many people who also have this family dynamic, understand is the issue of the language barrier. Speaking two completely separate languages makes the divide between my family even greater than the distance.
I wasn’t raised fully bilingual, it’s not easy to teach a child another language when everyone around them is speaking English and the community you live in does not have an aspect where you can speak your foreign parent’s native tongue. Unless you are constantly speaking the other language, you lose it.
Having my one parent have to translate everything I want to say and then translating back what my family wants to say is incredibly tedious and time consuming. I can’t call up my cousins who are my age and have a chat with them by myself, they don’t understand what I’m saying and I don’t understand what they are saying either.
It is so hard to keep in contact when we are swept away with our own separate lives worlds apart. It's easy to get angry or feel guilty that you aren't around or a huge part of their lives.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t family. I know if I ever got the chance to catch the flight over the ocean to visit, the second I walk in the room I would be swept up in a welcome wave of love. My grandmother would put plate after plate of specially made food in front of me and my cousins would be begging me to come outside and play with them.
So although I do not get to be there for everything and I haven’t seen half of my family in many years, I know that they are there for me. I know that they care about me and think about me even if we don’t speak for quite awhile as I also care and think about them.
Although the gap in time zone, language and country makes us very different, there is something very universal about sending a smile or a wave that lets my half my family know that even though they are across the world, I love them just as much as if they lived next door.
