First Generation Immigrant Quotes

“Dead. He thought to himself, all dead. For me, you have been dead a long time, as long as I can remember. You, who gave a life to me and to Taro and tried to make us conform to a mold which never existed for us because we never knew of it, were never alive to us in the way that other sons and daughters know and feel and see their parents. But you made so many mistakes. It was a mistake to have ever left Japan. It was a mistake to leave Japan and to come to America and to have two sons and it was a mistake to think that you could keep us completely Japanese in a country such as America. With me, you almost succeeded, or so it seemed. Sometimes I think it would have been better had you fully succeeded. You would have been happy and so might I have known a sense of completeness. But the mistakes you made were numerous enough and big enough so that they, in turn, made inevitable my mistake. I have had much time to feel sorry for myself. Suddenly I feel sorry for you. Not sorry that you are dead, but sorry for the happiness you have not known. So, now you are free. Go back quickly. Go to the Japan that you so long remembered and loved, and be happy.”
― John Okada, No-No Boy

“It's a maddening dig First and Onlys often hear from our friends and family back home. 'You've changed.' I was still the same person inside, but aren't we all meant to change throughout our lives? ...At the time, I didn't fully grasp that for First and Onlys, our efforts to recalibrate and survive in new spaces can often be misunderstood as leaving our friends, our culture, or our families behind. We face dual rejection—in our new environments and in our old ones—for opposite reasons.”
― Alejandra Campoverdi, First Gen: A Memoir