In this story, Hong Wu shares about how she and her husband immigrated from China to the U.S. She also describes her experiences living in Kansas and San Diego.
I grew up in a small remote town in China. There was no airport, train track, or bus in town. The main transportation was on foot and by bike. Before college, the farthest place I had been from home was just a two-hour car drive away.
After I finished my graduate school in China, I was supposed to look for a job. The usual pattern in China back then was to find a job at a company and work there for life. I didn’t want to immediately be tied down with one job for the rest of my life. My husband was in America for graduate school, so I decided to follow him here to explore other career options. My husband and I feel blessed to have been living and working in San Diego for over 20 years.
I landed in Dallas for a transfer flight to Kansas in the 1990's, but the flight was canceled due to the weather. I was arranged to stay at an airport hotel. When I went to the hotel’s restaurant to get dinner, I was shocked that everyone at the restaurant was drinking ice water and wearing shorts even though it was very cold and snowing outside. That was the first shocking experience I had in America, as it would only be considered acceptable to drink hot water and wrap ourselves with heavy coats in winter in China.
One of the main challenges I experienced in America was the language barrier. When I first arrived, I could neither understand a word of what people said nor be understood when I spoke. I could read English pretty well since I did learn English for many years in China. Although there was a language barrier, I was pleasantly surprised by how people treated others with kindness.
Most of the time, especially when I initially moved to the U.S., I found that people were very nice, kind, and welcoming. While I was in Kansas, there weren’t many Asians, so people might’ve stared at us because they were curious. However, most of the people we interacted with (for example, from the church) were very welcoming and kind.
When I came to San Diego, I felt like the environment was more comfortable because of the larger population of Asian people here. However, in the last few years, a lot of anti-Asian hate has become more obvious. The worst part is that some people feel that they can discriminate against Asian Americans without any consequences. I hope that we can be treated more fairly and equally by everyone.
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