Hands of My Father

I happened to catch the tail end of “Talk of the Nation” on NPR while I was in my car this week. The segment was titled “Hands of My Father“, and was an interview with Myron Uhlberg, the author of the book of the same name. While this story was not specific to Asians, I thought many Asians of immigrant parents would relate to one story talked about on the radio segment.

Myron Uhlberg was born the hearing son to a deaf mother and father during the Great Depression and he relates his experiences in his book. During the radio show, a woman called in who was also hearing and the daughter of deaf parents to relay a story of when she was six years old and her parents took her to the bank to have her help them open a bank account. She had to use sign language and act as the translator, and found herself a six year old trying to explain terms she didn’t understand, like compound interest using her limited sign language vocabulary.

Listening to this radio show brought me to tears, partly because my emotions are already raw from the recent loss of my mother, partly because it brought memories of all the times in my life I’ve had to act as translator for my mother. For me, it started at a young age as well, and I remember my mother asking me to explain what a cashier had asked, to read a menu at a restaurant, and various other daily tasks. I also remember difficult translation tasks, where there was so much more that needed to be conveyed, and I couldn’t find the words to convey that specific message. I know today that for a child of that age, asking them to be the translator, puts them in an impossible situation. But I don’t blame my mom, I know she always had our best interests at heart.

My mom moved to the U.S. when she was 30, never having gained fluency in English. So her kids were her translators. Although I was the middle child I was the first to be fluent in English and frequent translator. I always felt guilty about leaving home for college wondering how my mom would get by. But my mom was always stronger than I gave her credit for. By the time I was an adult my mother had mastered her own self-confidence and enough English to navigate her own way in American society.

I can’t imagine being put in the same situation myself, being dropped in a world where you don’t speak the language and you have to rely on your children to get basic errands done. It took a lot of courage for my mom to live in the U.S. and I have to give her a lot of credit for all her successes.