The Immigrant experience influences children as they grow. For
many whose immigrant roots are generations removed from today, the
Fourth of July means fireworks and hotdogs. But for many immigrant
Americans in the South Valley and San Benito County, it has special
meaning. People who came to this country for the opportunities and
freedoms many of us take for granted are celebrating their own
independence
– from social oppression and economic hardship. This week The
Pinnacle explores some of these neighbors, and the challenges they
face to assimilate into their adopted country.
The Immigrant experience influences children as they grow. For many whose immigrant roots are generations removed from today, the Fourth of July means fireworks and hotdogs. But for many immigrant Americans in the South Valley and San Benito County, it has special meaning. People who came to this country for the opportunities and freedoms many of us take for granted are celebrating their own independence – from social oppression and economic hardship. This week The Pinnacle explores some of these neighbors, and the challenges they face to assimilate into their adopted country.
When Gabriel Montes, now 24, was born his parents disagreed about what language should be his first. His mother, Teresa, wanted him to speak only English. But his father, Alfredo, wanted him to start out speaking Spanish. In the end, the couple had a Spanish-speaking babysitter so Montes learned his parents’ native tongue and knew little English when he went to school.
“For me, English was so hard. I wanted my kids to have a better life,” said Teresa, who emigrated from Mexico when she was 17. “I didn’t want them to speak Spanish, but my husband said they should speak it.”
The struggle over language, an emphasis on education and obligations to family are themes that run through many lives of children born to immigrants or those who immigrated as youngsters. While their families come from different parts of the world, Montes’ life is not so different from David Wong, 29, who also grew up in Gilroy. Both men now carry on their shoulders the world their parents left behind and the opportunities created for them.
Mexican or American
Language divided Montes from other students when he first started elementary school.
“I remember it was scary. I remember holding on to the teacher’s skirt,” he said. “The teacher always mispronounced my name. She called me something like ‘Gabrielle.'”
By the time Montes’ brother, Daniel, was born, the couple decided to teach him only English as a baby.
“I think he had it easier [in school,]” Montes said. “But he didn’t speak Spanish or he spoke it funny, though he speaks it really well now.”
Still, language proved to be a problem for Daniel in school. In the 1980s, El Roble school had English-only classes and bilingual classes. When Daniel first started school, the administration enrolled him in a bilingual class.
“My boy’s last name is Spanish so they placed him in the Spanish class without asking,” Teresa said. “The teacher said there was no place in an English class. She didn’t understand that he couldn’t speak Spanish because I had such a strong accent.”
With short, dark hair and dark brown eyes, Teresa seems more serious than her oldest son whose cheeks fill in with dimples as he smiles. She still speaks with an accent where her son has none, but speaks with a clarity that draws the attention of her son’s greenish-brown eyes when she retells stories he’s heard all his life.
As the boys grew up, Teresa emphasized that while she and Alfredo were Mexican, the boys were American. She felt disconnected from her new home and her old one, but wanted the boys to be at home.
In school American-born Mexican students picked on the children of migrant workers who were enrolled in the bilingual classes.
At times, Montes said he wanted to make sure that people didn’t confuse him with the Mexican children.
“Part of me did feel that way,” he said. “I couldn’t really relate to them.”
As he grew up, his parents placed a high premium on education and family. While Teresa and Alfredo took classes at Gavilan Community College – where they met – both hoped for more education for their sons.
Alfredo would read bedtime stories, mimicking voices for each character.
“We always had so many dictionaries and thesauruses and books,” Montes said. “We never had to go to the library.”
As both parents came from large families, Montes grew up with many aunts, uncles and cousins.
“For us, and for most Mexicans, family is very important,” Teresa said. “We have big family celebrations – birthdays, holidays – we mix our customs.”
Montes wasn’t always as enthusiastic about the family get-togethers.
“I felt obligated to go and sometimes I just wanted to stay home,” he said. “But I am kind of amazed that [relatives] ask about me and Daniel all the time. It’s a good thing. It means coming together as a family is still a priority.”
Work comes first
David Wong’s life has been influenced by his parents’ experience as immigrants as much as Montes’.
Wong has straight black hair, dark skin and a lean body. But what distinguishes him most from his parents is his height. He towers over them at six feet, a testament to the better nutrition and healthcare he and his brother received in the United States.
He came to the United States from China with his family when he was 3 years old. His parents had relatives in San Francisco. The family settled into a one-bedroom apartment. While his father worked in a tofu factory and his mother sewed, he and his brother were left alone.
The family moved to Gilroy in 1983, when Wong was 6. His parents worked in a Chinese restaurant.
“Because there were only a handful of Asians in Gilroy, it was definitely different,” Wong said. “There were only one or two Asians. It was difficult, but I felt the teachers and other students were welcoming.”
Wong’s parents never pressured him to date only Chinese women. His family has always been accepting of his fiancee, Rachael Taggart, whom he began dating at 16.
Taggart made efforts to fit in with Wong’s family, taking Cantonese classes during college. But when they first dated, she hoped his parents wouldn’t answer the phone when she called the house.
“I was totally scared of them,” she said. “I was afraid to call his house because I wasn’t sure his dad would understand me.”
The family embraced an amalgam of American and Chinese traditions, but Wong’s parents always pushed him to fit in.
“It was more a push to learn the American culture because there is so much more opportunity in terms of jobs and going to school,” he said.
He and his brother excelled at math and science in school.
“It was very easy for us to think logically,” he said. “Learning English and writing essays was something that took time to develop with the language.”
When he was growing up, his parents’ made work their top priority. Even now, his parents work seven days a week in a Chinese restaurant they own in Morgan Hill.
“They never attended PTA meetings. They were never there for any kind of sporting event and didn’t participate in anything,” he said. “Yeah, obviously it would have been nice … they felt they couldn’t just not go to work.”
Even when Wong gave the salutorian speech at his high school or graduated from University of California, Berkeley, his parents didn’t come to the ceremony.
While in high school, Wong took a full load of advanced placement and honors classes, played on the badminton team and worked two part-time jobs.
“They liked that I worked and I had a lot of free time so they encouraged me,” he said. “It’s shocking to me because for most of my life, I had two or three jobs and suddenly I am out of school and I only have one.”
He and his parents clash about saving money and taking time off.
“Its hard for them to spend money because they always have the mentality of ‘save, save, save,'” he said. “So when I want to take a vacation, if I am not doing exactly what they are doing, I get looked down upon.”
Beyond dreams
Despite minor disagreements with their parents and other ups and downs while growing up, the greatest reminder of what they have is hearing their parents talk about where they came from.
“They do remind us of the different struggles they had,” Wong said. “The poverty was so great a cup of rice was all they had for the whole family.”
His parents talk of the starvation and working all day in fields farming rice. Here his parents own their own home in Gilroy and a restaurant in Morgan Hill.
“They came here for the opportunity allotted,” Wong said.
Montes realized how far his family had come when he visited his father’s family in Mexico when he was 12. In Zacatecas, Montes stopped by his great-grandparents home. While some people had satellite dishes and television sets, many homes didn’t have the basics.
“My great-grandparents didn’t have bathrooms at 80 or 90 years old – they had a spot where they went in the back – but my aunt brought them a TV to replace one that had broken,” Montes said.
The difference in socioeconomics struck Montes most.
“If you don’t have a family connection to help you, you can’t move on,” he said.
For his parents visiting family and sharing their stories is a way to keep the boys from being spoiled.
“We weren’t poor-poor, but we weren’t rich. We were barely making it,” Teresa said, of her family when she first arrived from Mexico. “I never dreamed I would have a house like this and such a beautiful family because for me they are.”
