Best Immigrant Parents Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“My family is not running a marathon. We're running a relay. My parents have gotten me this far. Everything I do is to get us further. I carry their hopes along with my own.”

Family American Dream Immigrant Experience Immigrant Immigrant Parents Child Of Immigrants

Book:Love in English

Source: Love in English

“Her mother had once screamed, “How am I going to pay for this? Why don’t you take better care of yourself?” Her mother didn’t have time for empathy. She always had to keep moving. If she stopped, she might drown.”

Single Motherhood Immigrant Parents

Book:The Last Story of Mina Lee

Source: The Last Story of Mina Lee

“My parents are not special people, they’re ordinary, and one of my problems is that I’m expecting perfection from ordinary people. They’re not saints or masters of knowledge just people, people who have children, which, last time I checked, required no proficiency test. People who continue to make mistakes, attempt to learn from them and repeat, until death.”

Depression Perfection Parenting Immigrant Experience Ghana Black Author Immigrant Parents

Book:Maame

Source: Maame

“I don't care what baggage they dragged over the ocean. They have no right to make me carry it the rest of my life.”

Immigrant Experience Immigrant Parents Parental Expectations

Book:Loveboat, Taipei

Source: Loveboat, Taipei

“My parents already know I'm bereft of their culture, that their son is almost as Frank or Bill as any other American, but they also believe this is necessary: that if their son is to become president, it won't happen while he is wearing a turban. They're willing to surrender their culture in order to assure my success, which means the price of my inclusion here is our alienation from each other.”

Assimilation Immigrant Experience Immigrant Parents Cultural Erasure

Book:Of Color

Source: Of Color

“I grew up listening to languages my immigrant parents didn't want to teach me, so I get a regressive pleasure out of feeling my way through sounds to their possible meanings. Not "getting" a word, or a line, or a poem at first read was never an obstacle for me — in fact, it was a seduction.”

Language Immigrants Ancestors Mother Tongue Immigrant Parents First Generation Not Knowing Your Mother Tongue

Author:Ange Minko

“If you were to find this man and this America to your liking...well, it would be good for you.”

America Immigration Immigrants 19th Century Poland Immigrant Experience Immigrant Parents The Reluctant Bride

Book:The Reluctant Bride

Source: The Reluctant Bride

“It's like my mom and dad created a whole new world for themselves. I live in their new world. But they understand the old world, the world they came from—and I don't. I don't belong anywhere. That's the problem.”

Belonging Immigrant Parents

Book:Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Source: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“But if I knew any of this back then, I didn't yet have the vocabulary for that knowledge. And perhaps because of that, without intending to do so, I had continued the pattern of some of the men, and most of the women, in my family, reaching s far back as we had memory. We were careless, and shiftless, and unthinking. We left our ancestral homes, we birthed and sometimes buried our children in far-flung places, and we started afresh over and over. We cared for land, but too often it wasn't our land to care for.”

Immigrant Experience Expats Immigrant Parents

Book:Leaving Before the Rains Come

Source: Leaving Before the Rains Come

“Nick nodded. "My mother said that always surprised her-all the houses made out of wood here, especially in the suburbs. She said growing up in the Soviet Union, it was all concrete and cinder blocks where she lived. Wooden houses were for old Russian fairy tales." Sawyer reflected, mulling. "Have you ever wanted to go there?" "Sure. But growing up, I was always told that's was impossible," he said. "At least for me and my mom, given her political history. But it's strange; there were times when I was super aware that she could never bring me back to where she was from, but other times I felt so completely that I have been there in my mind, I forget that I haven't, even now." "Do you speak Russian?" "Of course. My mom's English is perfectly fine, but we always wind up speaking in Russian together." "Do you ever...dream in Russian?" "I do.”

Diaspora Bilingualism Immigrant Parents

Book:Summer Fridays

Source: Summer Fridays

“I think the biggest difference is that I've noticed Western parents seem much more concerned about their children's psyches, their self-esteem, whereas tough immigrant parents assume strength rather than fragility in their children and therefore behave completely differently.”

Thinking Children Self Seems Parent Differences Self Esteem Tough Concerned Assuming Western Esteem Behave Immigrants Fragility Psych Immigrant Parents

Author:Amy Chua

“I both loved and hated South Pasadena. On the one hand, it was so diverse - all my closest friends were immigrants or had immigrant parents. On the other hand, it was a bit conservative - in a sort of wholesome, Midwestern, small-town sense. I never met a single writer until I moved to New York City for college.”

Hands Bits Parent Cities New York College Mets Towns Moved South Conservative Hated Immigrants New York City Diverse Closest Small Town Closest Friends Immigrant Parents Pasadena

Author:Porochista Khakpour

“I think I was always informally thinking about choice from when I was a very young child because I was born to Sikh immigrant parents, so I was constantly going back and forth between a Sikh household and an American outside world, so I was going back and forth between a very traditional Sikh home in which you had to follow the Five K's.”

Thinking World Children Home Young Choices Parent Born Five Traditional Immigrants Household Back And Forth Outside World Young Children Immigrant Parents

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“I was raised to give back. I was born to immigrant parents and was fortunate to become successful at an early age. I've always felt a strong sense of national service to my country, and I may have been able to provide leadership in the political arena. I don't regret the decision not to enter politics, I just wonder sometimes if I could have changed anything.”

“My stomach sank. JP had come so close. His immigrant parents had sacrificed so much.”

Parent Immigrants Stomach Immigrant Parents

Author:John Green

“I was raised, myself, by extremely strict but also extremely loving Chinese immigrant parents. To this day, I believe that their having high expectations for me, coupled with love, was the greatest gift that anyone's ever given me. And so that's why, even though my husband is not Chinese, I try to raise my own two daughters the same way.”

“First-generation children were strongly influenced by their immigrant parents' approach to choice. For them, choice was not just a way of defining and asserting their individuality, but a way to create community and harmony by deferring to the choices of people whom they trusted and respected.”

People Way Firsts Children Inspiration Motivation Choices Parent Community Generations Approach Harmony Individuality Immigrants Trusted Defining Immigrant Parents

Author:Sheena Iyengar