My mother was the last in her immediate family to immigrate to the United States, while my father was the first and only to do so in his family. My parents were both born and raised in Hong Kong, a small region along the southern coast of China colonized by the British Empire at the time. Living with less money than the average household, both of their families were only just able to provide for them, since they were each one of four children in their respective families: my mother was the eldest and my father was the third child amongst his siblings. Despite these struggles, neither of them had any intentions of permanently leaving Hong Kong, but life offered different opportunities for them.

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My mother's uncle (my maternal grandfather's younger brother) was the first to bring up the topic of immigration to her parents. He, who worked on cargo ships in his youth, had already settled down in New York and offered to bring my mother with him to the United States to further her studies as a student. My grandfather, who was concerned with my mother's safety as a teenager in a foreign country alone, declined his offer. In the mid-1980s, my mother's uncle brought up the topic of moving again, this time to the entire family. My grandfather finally agreed, acknowledging that the U.S. would provide his children with better academic opportunities, and they officially applied for citizenship in the United States. In 1991, the family was approved for immigration and they started to pack their bags for a new life.

 

My mother, however, was the only one who was unable to move with the rest of her family. The approval of immigration came just a year too late. She had just passed the maximum age eligibility to immigrate to the U.S. the year prior and was denied the possibility of immigrating with the family. In fact, her younger sister was only a few days away from missing the age cutoff when she was approved for immigration. As a result, my mother was left in Hong Kong alone with all of her immediate family flying 8,000 miles away and she remained there for almost another decade.

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My father's side was the opposite. His family never even thought about the possibility of leaving Hong Kong. Both of his older siblings married young and had already started families, so picking up their stable lives there for another country was unfathomable. They knew that they would be unable to speak English fluently and they would only struggle to earn a minimum wage if they were to move to a country like the U.S. The idea of immigration only entered my father's mind when he started dating my mother.

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In 1999, my mother was approved to immigrate to the United States. When that happened, my parents decided that they would both move to the U.S., though they knew it could take some time for them to reunite. My mother became a U.S. citizen during the turn of the 21st century and my father continued living in Hong Kong. In America, my mom reunited with her family after a decade apart. She started working at an accounting firm introduced by her sister and she studied accounting at Borough of Manhattan Community College for two years. They married in 2001 in Hong Kong. In 2002, my dad was finally able to move to the United States and he became a permanent resident. He moved in with my mother's family in Brooklyn and they eventually moved to Queens after my birth.

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Despite their tumultuous process of immigrating to the United States, they eventually settled down, both culturally and financially, and started a family together.