Diaries From a Daughter of Hmong Refugee Parents - Entry 1
Packing
September 5th, 2024 3:00 p.m (PST)
I’m leaving to study in London next week. As I leave the US to pursue my dreams of becoming an artist, it makes me think of when my parents fled their country. I wonder if they had dreams they wanted to accomplish here. As teenagers, they must’ve had a career path they wanted to pursue. I wonder what their resources looked like; if they had internet, library databases, or schools like ours. Or maybe one day, they saw a man in a white coat through a clear glass in a clinic and just decided, “I want to be that person.” It hurts to hear my parents talk about who they could’ve been if their lives had been different because I understand I am part of the reason why they couldn’t fulfill their dreams.
June 29th, 2024. 9:33 a.m. - My father's first time in a restaurant in San Diego. He said that after 30 years, he was finally able to visit San Diego for the first time, and he loved it.
I wonder all the time what type of life they had imagined here when they decided to immigrate. Must it have been the thought of anywhere but here that impelled them to come? Or, maybe it was the willpower of providing a better life for their children. Either way, to this day, my mind is unable to fathom the fact that my refugee parents and other Hmong refugees who lived through war, fled their home country, fled again to refugee camps, and once more to the US. I think, “They must’ve had so many thoughts rushing through their heads,” but then, I realized how often they must’ve lived in bursts of adrenaline and maybe, there were no thoughts at all, just doing. Maybe this is the reason why my parents avoid talking about their history today. I realize now; that my parents left their country to survive. I’m leaving mine to thrive.
May 25th, 2024, 1:58 p.m. - on the way to Henderson Park, my mother told my sister and me stories of how her mother raised her back in Laos. She often reminisces about the events from the past and theorizes about what could've happened if she had never got married and begun a family.
Both my grandparents passed without telling me their stories. Now that I am old enough to be curious about their histories, I am left with only memories of who they were as my grandparents. I try to imagine what they were like as kids. My grandparents were quiet and strict when they needed to be. It’s funny, but I don’t think I would’ve been friends with them as kids. Our personalities are far too different, and they probably would'’t have liked to kick it with someone like me. As kids, I definitely would’ve been the one to get us all in trouble. As much as I’d like to create theories of their younger selves, I will always wonder what they were really like. That is a regret that I will live with. However, using this regret as fuel, I have a life ahead of me to tell the stories of other grandparents and parents who are waiting for their stories to be collected and told.
