On this Memorial Day I reflect on my father, a US Army Air Corp veteran who was one of 20,000 Chinese Americans who served in World War II and my new grandson.
My new grandson is a 6th generation Chinese American. His great-great-great grandfather was a railroad laborer in the 1800’s, his great-great grandparents were restaurant and laundry workers, his great grandfather is the veteran, his grandparents are corporate professionals and his parents, are a doctor and a lawyer. He is not elite nor privileged. We all still look for sales in the grocery circulars and shop regularly at Target. We drive there in our economy Japanese cars not German cars designed for the autobahn. He owes a lot, however, to his fore-parents like my father.
My father arrived from China when he was 13, went to school and lived in the back of a laundry. He enlisted in 1942 even though the country enforced the Chinese Exclusion Act which kept his friends and family from settling in this country. He trained and served with non-Asians from throughout the country and discovered an identity as an American with a Chinese cultural background.
My father could not attend college after his service, he had to help his father in the laundry store but it seems that they had a vision. One day their descendants will be like the white-collar professionals that they served. Pop worked with mom and would pay for the education of their four children for as far as they were willing to go, even though it meant working 12 hours a day, six days a week, for 40 years. That resulted in 2 graduate degrees and 2 lawyers. I think he learned a lot during his military service and meeting all those people gave him a sense that opportunity had no bounds. He would be so proud of his grandchildren, 2 more lawyers and a Ivy League, Oxford graduate attending medical school among several other successful grandchildren. I cannot help but believe that the he, and the fore-parents going back to the railroad laborer, are directly responsible for their achievement.
Now new members of the 6th generation carry on the narrative of the family. Born in the midst of a historic pandemic nobody knows what’s in store for their future but I hope they carry on some of the vision of their fore-parents: Dedication to the family, education, abide the law, be productive, respect others, respect religion and add value to the country. I hope they will also remember their veteran ancestor every Memorial Day and all other veterans who served and died for our country.
