"Equipped with just 200 yuan, three steamed buns Ah Ngin prepared for the long bus ride, and my rucksack, I was ready to leave."
Li Fang was just sixteen years old when she was catapulted from her sunny, rural home in Taishan, China to New York City's Chinatown.
[TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual abuse]
My life growing up in Taishan was like that of any other child growing up in the rural areas of Guangdong. After coming home from school and hastily finishing up my homework, my younger sisters and I would often set out to find leaves and branches that I would later use to start the stove fire for dinner. A gaslit stove was a luxury that no one in our village could afford, but we didn’t mind the inconvenience of our manual stove because we knew of nothing else.
Days off were often spent surrounded by brightly feathered chickens and flea-ridden pigs under the warm, humid Guangdong sun. Some days, I’d ride our father’s old bicycle to the town with the older of my two younger sisters clinging onto my back. We took occasional trips to town to have our food deposit card stamped by the standing officer so that we could receive our rations for that week. Going to town was like a small, one-day vacation compared to our mundane lives in the village.
With Baba’s condition growing worse, our family has been placed in an unusual position with Mama taking responsibility for our family. Mama always took great pride in this, shouldering the family’s burdens on her back and rarely letting us see her struggle. She was always assigned to work out of town. Though I never visited Mama at the factory, I knew she worked tirelessly day and night because we were always blessed with abundant rations. Mama had to work twice as hard as she usually would because, without Baba, we could never meet the state-imposed quotas for rations.
Mama rarely came home from her work in the factory, so when she returned unexpectedly one day, I anticipated something serious was to come. Mama wanted to send me to Mi Gok. She had already planned it out. Her friend at the factory told her of a cousin, Xiao Yun, who lived in New York City. Xiao Yun was kind enough to rent out a small place for me there. She promised that she would get everything ready for my arrival if we sent her the money beforehand. Almost everyone in our small village had family in Mi Gok. Vɔŋ Ayi lived a few houses away from us. Each time she came by to drop off her famous fresh dumplings, she would take the opportunity to brag about how well her son was doing in San Francisco. Her stories were always a different iteration of the same narrative. Her son was working office jobs in the city. He afforded to finance his lavish life in the big city while still sending money over to his mother here in Taishan. I never truly believed the stories that Vɔŋ Ayi had told us. They always seemed fantastical and over the top, but my mother always told me that it was because I was too unfamiliar with how advanced Mi Gok was compared to our small village. My mother always listened eagerly to Vɔŋ Ayi. I often saw Mama’s eyes light up in hope as she heard the miraculous stories of people like Vɔŋ Ayi’s son.
Even though my Mama rarely talked about it, I knew she, too, had always wanted to send her family to Mi Gok like the rest of the aunties and uncles in our village. Without a son in the family to send to Mi Gok, my mother thought that it was impossible, and decidedly focused her energy on working hard instead. When Mama found out her friend's cousin was living such a comfortable life as a young woman, she had hope again. Mama had spent months planning for my trip and already had the money saved and sent by the time she told me about her plan. I waited for Ah Ngin to object, but she did not.
The day I was told I would be leaving, I threw my clothes into the small rucksack my Mama gave me. I packed as much of the sixteen years of my life in Taishan as I could. I rushed to fold my cleanest clothing into the bag. Equipped with just 200 yuan, three steamed buns Ah Ngin prepared for the long bus ride, and my rucksack, I was ready to leave. Mama then handed me an envelope of tickets and forged documents.
“This is your ticket to success,” she said to me as she kissed my forehead.
What does the ‘American Dream’ really entail? How does being an immigrant in America affect quality of life? Young Author, Lauren Lee, joins the Read to Heal Podcast to discuss her novella “Living in Snake Skin” and lead courageous conversations about race in American media and the disheartening reality of many young immigrants. You can access this novel in Novelly’s digital library full of stories written by young writers from our Rising Voices Collective.
Novelly intern and high school student Eric Lopez reflects on Episode 6 of the Read to Heal Podcast:
Despite how traumatic these stories are, leaving them untold is not an option because the American Dream is not just about success stories. When children of immigrants hear about these stories, they build a greater understanding of their parents' parenting because they would know what experiences impacted them. And the truth is, immigrants who try to live the American dream have to go through hell to reach their success.
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