We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story

It seems like such a paradox to me that human beings are both great adapters to change and terrified by it at the same time. So often we drift through life bound by the poor decisions we've made in the past, too afraid of the uncertainty that comes with challenging our status quo. We find ourselves stuck on a ship that is headed full speed to a place we're pretty sure we don't want to go, but we also don't want to deal with the discomfort of jumping. So we say nothing, watching helplessly as we sail toward our doom like silent prisoners of our own past.

Whether you like it or not, you're getting better at something every day... ...No matter what you choose to do with your day, you are either helping to create a new habit or solidifying old ones. (p155)

Look, I'm not here to lecture you about Eurocentricity or media bias; I just want to put forth the idea that maybe China has been the punching bag of the West for a very, very long time, and that nothing is gained from the continued demonization of its people... of my people. If you can accept that a single country can give birth to both a Donald Trump and a Donald Glover, a Steve Carell and a Stone Cold Steve Austin, you shouldn't have any difficulty accepting that the 1.3 billion people who call China home are just as varied in their ideologies and philosophies. There are the party officials, the pure-of-heart idealists, the Crazy Rich Asians, the activists, the social media influencers (smash that subscribe button!), the internet trolls and every conceivable thing in between–but perhaps most of all, there are the families like my parents, who simply did their best to stay out of trouble and survive from one day to the next.

Homesickness was for people who actually had homes. I was an astronaut, after all, whose only home was the eternal vastness of space through which I floated untethered and unencumbered through any familial attachments. High school was over, and I was finally on my own.

There was no shame in doing what you had to in order to make ends meet; it was just life.

I spoke about growing up in an immigrant household and butting heads with my parents, whose lives were so fundamentally different from mine that it made conflict almost inevitable

But what about the experiences of second-generation kids like us—like feeling ashamed of the lunches our parents packed us because they were too “ethnic”? Or having to translate things for our parents because our English was better than theirs? Or struggling to communicate with our relatives in our home country because our Mandarin/Cantonese/Hindi/Korean/Viet was absolute horseshit?

Exchanging I love yous was a uniquely Western custom, and I had long ago come to terms with the fact that my parents expressed their love in a very different way—by telling me to put on a jacket, asking if I had eaten yet, or yelling at me when they felt like I wasn’t studying hard enough. The actual words were not a part of our family’s vocabulary at all.

On that day I became more than just a comic book character—I became a part of an idea that everyone deserves to see themselves as superheroes, as the leads of their own stories, or simply, just as multifaceted beings with hopes and aspirations and flaws.

The rest will fall into place, because true wealth and true happiness are reserved in this world for the people who are willing to risk it all in order to capture it. (p216)

My parents have come a long way since the events of this chapter, and we all look back on this time with complicated feelings of guilt and remorse. Our hope is that families like ours will read our story and understand where we went wrong so that they can make a different choice, a choice to listen and to be kinder to one another.

To my dog Barkley, who came into my life at my most desperate time of need and held on until the moment he knew I would be okay: I hope you’re wagging your tail up there on the Rainbow Bridge. I miss you every day, my boy.

Canada is not unilaterally friendly, nor is “friendly” even something that an entire country can be. Sometimes, it feels a bit like we try to cover up our uncomfortable truths with a veneer of tolerance and inclusion.

Hearing my mother's crestfallen and utterly disappointed voice confirmed what I had suspected all along -- that neither she nor my dad actually cared about me. There were no words of reassurance...and certainly no "I love you." All she cared about was that I had failed.

The university actually had to institute a curfew prohibiting students from studying after 9:30 p.m. because they were beginning to develop very unhealthy sleep habits. When even that did not discourage them from studying in secret, the school simply cut all electrical power to all the classrooms when the clock struck half past nine.

...maybe China has been the punching bag of the West for a very, very long time, and that nothing is gained from the continued demonization of its people...of my people. If you can accept that a single country can give birth to both a Donald Trump and a Donald Glover, a Steve Carell and a Stone Cold Steve Austin, you shouldn't have any difficulty accepting that the 1.3 billion people who call China home are just as varied in their ideologies and philosophies.

My whole family...spoke of this "Canada" as if it were some sort of idyllic paradise, a place of abundant snacks and endless affection....Looking back, it felt kind of cult-y, like gospel from the Church of Canadology that I was supposed to just accept.

Despite the best efforts of those around me, I still found plenty of ways to get myself into trouble. One time, I got salmonella by drinking the water from our fishbowl. Another time, I nearly electrocuted myself poking power outlets with my finger.

In trying to undo what my parents had done, I had become just like them - vindictive, hurtful and cruel.

I had only been exposed to the straight-and-narrow way: go to school, get a degree, graduate, get a job, make money, buy a house, and then die.

from the universe that good things happened to those who did the work.

I kept telling myself over and over again that my glory would come.

Acting, like life, gets a bit stale when you only make safe choices.

Jared had taught me the value of swinging for the fences and being the master of my own destiny.

I had become an expert at not doing any work; the more I got away with it, the more my behavior was enabled.

Without proper guidance from our parents, who were not terribly concerned with our self-confidence, most of us grew up feeling like we weren’t worthy to be loved or desired; like whatever we were was not enough.

Nobody forced us to come here,” he says. “We made a choice to immigrate. We knew that nothing was going to be handed to us, and we knew we were going to have to work twice as hard as everyone else.” My parents were not interested in concepts like political activism or social equality; there was only work, and survival.

better life. As the beneficiaries of their courage, we in the next generation are responsible for keeping their stories alive so that our great-great-grandchildren will know their roots and, in the face of adversity, will remember that they are descended from wide-eyed dreamers who never gave up on their goal.