Min Yi | December 16, 2011
If someone told me that one day, my children would do the dishes, clean the laundry, help prepare dinner, clean up afterwards, prepare their lunch for the next day … and put away their toys, I would have gone back to sleep because I would have been dreaming. Today, that dream is playing out in [...]
Min Yi | May 9, 2011
It didn’t seem so long ago when my mother was about my age and I was 9, Jing Wen’s age, and changing my little brother’s diapers when my mom worked in the sweatshop that promised us food and shelter. I thought of this as I watched my mother waving goodbye to me from the curb [...]
Min Yi | May 4, 2011
When may parents were learning to survive in New York City shortly after immigrating from China, I was their translator for many essential purposes. By age 8, I translated: bills, contracts, directions, movies, music, the news, I was even the translator for the parent teacher conferences. When there is a need, we must decide, can [...]
Min Yi | February 21, 2011
Chinese New Year is the holiday I remember celebrating most as a child. I would wear my nice clothes and go out to Chinatown with my mom and brother. We’d walk through the streets thronged with people, dragon dances and endless noise of fire crackers. We’d wait for what seemed like hours to get a table [...]
Min Yi | July 6, 2010
Why do people immigrate? Why do we leave everything we know to be our world to venture to the unknown? Spending almost all of one’s savings to bring few valuables and start anew. My son asked me a similar question when we visited Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty. I asked myself the same questions growing up [...]
