My mom, Diana is Chinese-American and a first generation Immigrant, but just barely, as she arrived in the small town of Salinas, California from Hong Kong when she was only 2 years old along with her older brother Doug and her Mom. Salinas was and still is a large farming city, located inland from Monterey California, and about a 2 hour drive south of San Francisco. She lived in a house in the back of a TV repair shop that her Uncle Jack owned along with at least 8 of her extended family members living there at all times and just 1 bathroom to share in an industrial part of Salinas. My grandma/her mom still lives in this house to this day but now the line for the bathroom is much shorter as now it is just her that lives there. However, most of my mom’s family still lives in Salinas or elsewhere in the Bay Area/Central California

Her family was poor but they all worked hard to try to create a better life for themselves and the next generation in the US. As a child, my mom experienced and saw this firsthand, her mom, my grandma worked as an advanced math teacher in China and in Salinas worked as a Frozen food packager on an assembly line along with my mom’s aunt Frances. She has told me many stories of her family and what it was like living together/near to all of her family almost like a small community. One story that really stuck with me was when she was young her family took a road trip all the way down to LA and disneyland for a day, but after getting all the way to the ticket gates they found out how pricey it would be they decided not to go and left. When my mom was just 10 years old on the weekend she would go with her extended family including her grandmother/my great-grandmother, to an onion shed to peel and bunch onions for just 10 cents a bunch. She also lived with her cousin Gene who was also like an older brother to her. He was adopted by Uncle Jack and his wife after they found him as an orphan on the streets of Hong Kong at a young age.

My great-grandmother was a very respected member of the family as she was the oldest in the family at the time, living until 103, and also because when she was younger during World War 2 Japan invaded the area surrounding her village. Because of this famine spread and lots of people did not have enough food, my great-grandmother, who had a large rice supply openly shared with the village and was seen as a hero.

In elementary school, my mom began to fall in love with reading at the local library. She stumbled across a book called Martin Eden by Jack London which was about an Irish immigrant who taught himself to read and write and became a successful author. She was inspired by this book to become a writer by 4th grade also partially due to her favorite English teacher Ms. Mauer. My mom learned to use writing to express emotion and the power words can have, and in around 8th grade, she wrote a letter to President Nixon. In the letter, she appealed to him for help with her Dad. To understand how her family came to America and why her dad was not able to come with them, we need to zoom out and understand the social situation in China at the time of my mom’s birth. 

At the time of my mom’s birth, China was in social and political turmoil, for years her family and relatives had gradually been immigrating to the States searching for a better life. One of those family members was her uncle Jack, the brother of her Dad, Henry. 

It was partially because of Uncle Jack the rest of the family was able to come to the United States; he was one of the first of what were called “Paper Angels”. At the time there was a lot of racism and fear of immigration in the US and due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, it was difficult not only to leave China but also to legally immigrate to the US. Jack was able to come to the US as a “Paper Son '' who were the sons of Chinese immigrants who were already US citizens. During the great earthquake of 1906 fires destroyed San Francisco documents which led to Chinese US citizens claiming fake “Paper Sons”. Jack was one of the people who paid these “Paper Angels” and he became a “Paper Son” so he could get his citizenship at the age of just 13. Eventually, he was able to be the United States tie that the family needed to start immigrating.

After my mom was born her family decided it was time for them to try and build a better life in the US, but it was anything but easy to immigrate to the US from China at the time not only due to US regulations but also because of Chinese politics at the time.

China was still run by Chairman Mao Zedong and his wife who were part of the “gang of 4” who were the 4 people who controlled China and instigated the destructive and history-altering cultural revolution. For my mom, her brother, and her parents to all come to the US, they left Canton, China for Hong Kong to meet up with my mom’s grandmother and more family members, however, due to her dad Henry being a Civil Engineer, he was not allowed to leave because of the government's paranoia towards the educated class and because he was a valuable asset. From Hong Kong, my mom came to the US on a boat, but her dad was stuck in China.

Once the Cultural Revolution came into full swing in China her dad was put on house arrest at the factory he was building, so she never really knew her dad until he was released and finally was able to come to the US when she was 17 starting college, so growing up uncle Jack was like father to her. So back to the letter my mom wrote to Nixon in Middle school, she asked him to help people like her father immigrate to the US. She will never know if her letter was read but she does credit Nixon for improving relations with China with her father eventually being able to come to the US. 

She grew up with being a writer as her #1 goal and she wrote for both her highschool and college newspapers in high school, and was able to get a scholarship to UCLA and eventually film school where she won many awards and never looked back. Her brother Doug became an architect and lives in San Fransisco, and her Cousin Gene is a scientist and investor who lives in Washington State. Her mom, my grandmother is still alive at the age of 92, but most of my close family from that generation has passed including Uncle Jack, and my grandfather. My mom pursued writing and the film industry and she later lived in New York City briefly and then came back to LA where she met my father. But that's a different story, and because of this incredible journey, I am here today.