Unlike those desperate stories of arriving in America with only $20 in their pocket, my parents did not arrive that way. My dad arrived at the age of 17 ready for college education (on his father’s wallet, no less) and then chose never to return to Hong Kong. More than a decade later, my mom arrived in style, ready for an adventure post-nursing school to spend time with her nursing school classmate and find her father. During her visit, she met her nursing school classmate’s brother, my father. Once married, they just settled in the Bay Area.

So there’s that. It’s not for the seeking of better life which was their parents—fleeing China’s cultural revolution or finding a way to make money to support the family. My parents’ generation rode on the coattails of their parents and in doing so, they diffused the cultural of struggle that would be passed to my sister and me.

What if I had lived under the burden of hatred of another race that had assassinated ours? What if I had lived under the challenges of survival—of finding shelter and food? Would that history engrained in my childhood frame my world differently? In contrast to the world where I have luxury to question my career path and friends?