The Boat

After breaking the news to my parents over dinner this evening, I can't help but feel the guilt that Nam Le captured so well in his first short story of The Boat.  The circumstances of that protaganist and myself are completely different, but what I think Nam Le is able to portray so vividly are the feelings and emotions that go through an immigrant's child.  The feelings of resentment, entitlement, misunderstanding, and as the title of the story indicates: love and honour and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.

As is the case with many baby boomers, the generation before me had to work really hard to get to where they are today.  And I think this is especially true of immigrants, who really had to struggle to adapt to a new language, a new culture, and prove that they could be a citizen of the U.S.  People like my parents, who came to the U.S. because there were no real growth opportunities in their country, and who both had to work, oftentimes night shifts, in order to support a family of four.  And I think as a child of an immigrant who has succeeded here, I have often forgotten these facts.  To the pride and compassion and sacrifice my parents demonstrated to get to where they are.  It's sad that I sometimes do feel pity for immigrant parents, who seem to only care about success measured in whether their children are doctors, lawyers, bankers.  It's sad because this is what they sacrificed for.  This is what love and honour mean.  And upon realizing this, that's when you feel guilt.

I dont' really read too many short stories, but I do enjoy them over the novel occasionally because you can pick it up and leave it for good periods of time (at least if you finish a story).  And I think I gravitate toward immigrant writers like Nam Le and Jhumpa Lahiri because they do get to the heart of what it feels like to be the new generation in a land that your parents will never be part of.  The feelings of alienation, of uncertainty with oneself if not following the "traditional" path, but also the perspective that we should all keep in mind when we struggle with our own selfish endeavors.