November is National Family Caregiver Month. For 1.5-generation immigrant children like me, it feels good to be acknowledged for this critical role that so many of us are playing within our families.
Most of the Chinese-American families that have immigrated to the United States have done so after the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which is also known as the Hart-Celler Act. This legislation abolished the earlier quota system based on national origin. This Act established a new American immigration policy that was based on attracting skilled labor to the United States and reuniting immigrant families.
As a result of emigration from a country in Asia and immigration to the United States made possible by this 20th-century legislation, our Chinese-American families often are what sociologists call “nuclear families” – a family group that consists of two parents and their children. Often, the larger extended family is back in Asia. And our 1st-generation immigrant parents have aged since arriving to seek their American Dream.
When one is a family caregiver in a nuclear family there are important implications: 1) we do not have a “Cousin Sue” in Ohio to call to come give us respite from caregiving for a week and 2) our parents left their extended families to come to America so they often did not seeing their parents aging and do not have any hands-on family caregiving experiences of their own. Yes, some immigrant Chinese-American families did subsequently petition to have elders immigrate to the United States, but many like my family have lived all these decades in this country as only a nuclear family.
So, this month after more than nine years as the full-time family caregiver for my Mom who has Parkinson’s Disease, I am grateful that back in 2014, then-President Barack Obama designated the month of November as National Family Caregivers Month. An excerpt from the Presidential Proclamation reads:
“Each day, courageous individuals step forward to help care for family members in need, their quiet acts of selflessness and sacrifice telling a story of love and devotion… During National Family Caregivers Month, we salute the people who play difficult and exhausting roles…”
Indeed, the journey of a family caregiver, regardless of heritage, is difficult and exhausting. For immigrant family caregivers, there are often other factors that add additional stress:
1)language issues: the need to interpret for our elders for whom English is not the dominant language, especially terms used in medical settings (e.g., “U.T.I.” is “urinary tract infection”).
2)cultural issues: for example, if our elder is a practicing Buddhist, how do we make sure we honor and fulfill their end-of-life wishes?
As a 1.5-generation immigrant family caregiver with no “blueprint” about how to care for my mother with a chronic degenerative illness, I have learned a lot – often through trial and error – during my caregiving journey. I tell others that I have evolved from “The Draggin’ Daughter” (draggin’ with fatigue, worry, etc.) into “The Dragon Daughter” by empowering myself with information. I encourage other family caregivers on their own caregiving journey to do research and seek out the helpful resources that are available.
The biggest epiphany I have gained in this experience has been the insightful observation from former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, a pioneering advocate for family caregivers:
“There are only four kinds of people in the world: Those who have been caregivers, those who currently are caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.”