Strongest influence affecting your family & members

[shootingstar]

Would be still the influence of growing up with first generation immigrant parents..who came from a non-European culture and speaking non-European language.   These 2 experiences can be a powerful influence that colours how a person at different stages interacts in different social groups outside of the family, living in North America.  (In my opinion.)  The immigrant experience and learning English later in life as I did (even though born in Canada and lived all my life here) can (not always), can create a "difference" how one sees and reacts to others who don't fit dominant North American culture/society.

1.  For instance, since my partner was an immigrant from Germany, had to learn English and did get bullied as a boy in mid-1950's for being German, it's easier for him to empathize immigrant experiences in adjustment difficulties, etc.  He has also gone through the happy phase of returning to Germany several times in life ..to meet relatives, solo experience Germany after Nazi/war period several times, etc.  

So he is happy to go to movies ie. "Hidden Figures" with me.  He even suggested we to see the movie, "Crazy Rich Asians".  I must admit, I was secretly happy he suggested this rather than the reverse.  We want to see how crazy the movie and about expression of self-identity if you are Asian in Asia vs. Asian in North America.

 

2. For my niece, she wants to see movie. She is half-Chinese and already has written a romance  about a workaholic rich CEO Chinese-Canadian guy who has forgotten to date, etc. It is taken some time for her to embrace and understand her Chinese-Canadian side of her.  Her hubby is white Anglo and he grew up in small conservative town of 10,000 in southern Ontario.  I know she doesn't like to visit the town.. She feels she's "suffocating".    Her hubby has been supportive of her writing endeavours. Unfortunately he doesn't want to see movie at all....which is too bad.  My guess is that: he's just tired of it all  or feels "left out".  He participates in my extended family's gatherings and we've known him for past 13 years.

Well one day, he'll come around. I know.  My partner didn't totally understand my own  journey at the beginning...over 25 yrs. ago.

 

 

 

[Zephyr]

"He'll come around"??  That is quite the statement.

So let me get this straight, he does not wish to go see "A contemporary romantic comedy..." (according to IMDB) because he feels left out?  Maybe he just doesn't want to go see it.  I didn't go with my wife and daughter to see "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" not because I felt left out, but because it had no interest to me.

He participates in your family gatherings, yet his wife (your niece) does not like going to  his 'suffocating' home town.  I think maybe it is she that needs to 'come around'.  I am sure that his growing up in small town Ontario was every bit a huge influence on who he is as a man as growing up as an immigrant Chinese-Canadian is to your niece.  It would be interesting to see what you would write if she embraced his past and his roots, but he did not wish to involve himself with your family because he found it suffocating.

My family has lived in the same small area since the late 1600's, and yet I have been on the move for almost 30 years, having lived in 6 different provinces and I can tell you that there are as many 'difficult' factors in staying put as there are in leaving.

I am a little surprised that you wrote this.  You seem like a very nice person and well rounded.  You just seem too dismissive of his culture and heritage because it is 'conservative' and 'Anglo'.  

[BuffJim]

Gravity 

[shootingstar]

2 hours ago, Zephyr said:

He participates in your family gatherings, yet his wife (your niece) does not like going to  his 'suffocating' home town.  I think maybe it is she that needs to 'come around'.  I am sure that his growing up in small town Ontario was every bit a huge influence on who he is as a man as growing up as an immigrant Chinese-Canadian is to your niece.  It would be interesting to see what you would write if she embraced his past and his roots, but he did not wish to involve himself with your family because he found it suffocating.

My family has lived in the same small area since the late 1600's, and yet I have been on the move for almost 30 years, having lived in 6 different provinces and I can tell you that there are as many 'difficult' factors in staying put as there are in leaving.

I am a little surprised that you wrote this.  You seem like a very nice person and well rounded.  You just seem too dismissive of his culture and heritage because it is 'conservative' and 'Anglo'.  

I don't think she enjoys hearing from her father-in-law about how he supports Doug Ford, the new premier of Ontario..when she and hubby visits.  she's a polite young woman, Zephyr. If you saw her, she looks quite Caucasian. How I see it in my "narrow" way, is she didn't pay much attention much but happily just took for granted the Chinese-Canadian half of herself when her mother was alive.  That parental touchstone is no longer there.  After her death, she spent time realizing she no longer can use her mother as the "bridge" or as a reference point. She needed to figure out herself about her identity.

My niece doesn't need to "come around". Her father has blue eyes, fair hair (like my partner) and is U.K. roots but in Canada around for last 3-4 generations.  She has a great relationship with her father.  But then her father married my sister....so....he is different from father-in-law.  Niece enjoys living in Toronto (well her whole life) for its diversity, cultural offerings, etc.  Toronto is celebrated in  some of her books, as a backdrop.

No, I doubt her husband is conservative. She wouldn't have even been interested in him, in the first place long ago.  Was I dismissing Anglo culture?  No. It's powerful, Zephyr.  It really is..... in terms of broad social acceptance. in North America..and especially climbing a career ladder in North America.  Really ,a lot people talk about multiculturalism....as long as you can eventually speak English, understand and embrace key societal values particular to North America...which there are some key things we do abit better than Asia or Europe.