My grandfather who was a lawyer for the South government became a man who didn’t even have a house that could shelter his own family, and the worst part was seeing his father was killed by Communist soldiers. After the worst 15 years in Vietnam, my family decided to flee to America for a better life, better place where they could have their own freedom; since many Vietnamese showed their successful and achieved “American Dream” due to nail salon’s businesses, and job opportunities were introduced newly in America. However, coming to America for living was not that easy, discrimination for immigrants were vividly at that time, and it was hard to find a decent job with fine wages. My aunts had to go to work in an assembly factory in the second day coming to America, since they could not afford to stay home even a single day. At that time, many immigrants worked in assembly jobs with low wages just to earn money to put food in the table. Assembly jobs were like the only job that did not require English speaking and immigrants would do anything that paid even really low wages. Young women and men would stay inside a factory all day to assemble electric equipment. This situation was similar for Mexicans and Jewish women who had to work inside shirtwaist factories and earned low wages to support their families, and even they were sick, they could not afford to stay home, otherwise they would be fired and everyone would die of hungers. 

– Emmie Ho

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant