Three Generations

In three generations, we have gone from limited access to education to degrees in higher education. We have gone from sharing a lower middle class home in a developing country with twelve extended family members to living in separated, individual hamlets of nuclear relations in lands far beyond our native roots. We have gone from restricted access to technology to depending entirely upon it.  We have a million ways to be together, yet we often feel very alone.  Tremendous changes in location, lifestyle, and ideals occurred in less than a century within the family.  It is a wonder how we still connect to one another.

As it stands, the first generation- born and raised completely upon our native, provincial land- carried the burden of providing basic needs for her children.  Her goal in life and her dreams at night for her children were practical- that they live beyond their childhood years.  She housed us in a home without light, she fed us food available from the local market and the land surrounding our wooden shack of a home, she spoke to us in our provincial language, and she gave us life.  Anything else beyond these things was superfluous.   

The second generation sought more than the fundamental needs of life.   She lived in three lands- not by choice, but by a perceived necessity.  She was born in our native, provincial land speaking our provincial tongue.  Limited opportunity pushed her to crowded cities forcing her to learn another tongue to make a living.  Lack of upward mobility, once again, pushed her away from her native land and made her speak yet another tongue, as she sought to provide her children with a light-filled home, constant source of nourishment, better health, education, and opportunity.  She wanted to give us life.   

The third generation seeks the pursuit of dreams.  She was raised an ocean away from her native, provincial land.  She is unable to speak her provincial tongue and barely able to speak the language of her native country - the language of the city.  Assimilating in language and ideals to her new homeland, her life differs completely from the first generation.  She is housed in humble comfort.  She eats when she is hungry.  Access to education has become her right.  She pursues every opportunity given her by her new homeland with great passion knowing that only a generation ago, none of these things were available to her.  She dreams big.  She wants to change the world beyond herself and her family.  She wants to live her life.      

As with all words, the meaning of life evolved from surviving to a right to dream as generations progressed.  This disconnect of meaning can easily be lost causing discord in the family. A certain sense of ignorance comes from being a --generation immigrant.  Family members’ names escape the memory, places of ancestral importance are forgotten, and knowledge of one’s native language is deficient or completely disregarded.  Being born into a culture where familial relations define identity, such incomplete knowledge of one’s history makes for an incomplete definition of a being- a sense of loss of identity.

The definition of ‘identity’ itself is in limbo between a collective mindset and individual pursuits.  Like Atlas, we carry upon our shoulders a great weight comprised of a sense of responsibility to bear fruit of our family’s sacrifices. Our parents and grandparents gave up nearly everything for the futures of their children- for us.  They left their homes, their families, their languages, and their zones of comfort for the sake of opportunity for their posterity.  This fact is continually present in our conscience, as it should, but from it arises conflict.  This weight either burdens or strengthens one’s soul. 

It can be seen that the meaning of life vastly differs from generation to generation.  The goals, the dreams, and purpose of each generation progressed from providing basic needs to pursuing dreams through time.  It is a wonder, then, how generations can connect with and understand one another.     

How is one supposed to pursue their dreams when they feel a responsibility to achieve the dreams of their families?