Story Pitch
“We all make choices in life whether they are good or not, we still make them.”
— Adam Isidto
“Do your homework!”, “Stop wasting time!”, “I didn’t sacrifice everything I had so you can fool around!” these, along with many other classic quotations, are among the many things we hear mostly from immigrant parents. The pressure they put on us teenagers accumulates and becomes rather unbearable at times. The emotional, mental and physical stress they put us through is extremely difficult to deal with, and the expectations we suffer under fill our anxiety to the brim.
The reason our story is significant is because, as Grade 11 students, it directly affects our lives. We are in a crucial development stage in our lives, nearly everything we absorb these days build a stronger foundation for who we become. We have to recognize that these changes will occur for better or for worse. Moreover, the decision we make and action we institute, changes us and accumulates towards our future. Our story differs from other coverages on this particular subject because the majority of the writers are adults. They may have lived through the same pressure, but times are different now. Parents are getting progressively more worried about their children’s occupation and success for the future, and in the process becoming too demanding for their children to handle.
We know we aren’t the only ones who suffer from this, so we went out and inquired multiple other teens of our age who have immigrant parents as well. As we question a variety of teens of different ethnicity, there were a couple of examples that drew our intrigue. There was a girl who dreamed of being a professional dancer, but because of her passion for dancing, her grades began to slip. After her parents realized this, they informed her to stop dancing, to stop wasting her time with a hobby of no future and to focus on becoming an engineer instead. “Your parents are always right”. A phrase we always hear came into effect onto this particular girl. This is a major problem we want to address in our story. The four of us want not to prevent them from listening to their parents but to guide other teens to make their own decisions in life. In our society, there won’t ever be a correct decision in life, you just need to work hard enough to make your decision a good one. All her life she felt isolated, she never shared her story with anyone before, well not before us, but she was not alone.
There was a boy who shared similar struggles, his dream was not anything selfish, he wanted to adopt his parent’s ideology of a perfect child. He tried his best to live up to the standards that his parents set, but an obstacle came. It was a titan, known as “U-B-C”. He spent the majority of his life polishing all the skills in his arsenal even if it cost him his childhood, high school years and social life. He did everything it took to get accepted into the University of British Columbia. Looking at this from an outsider perspective, you can see that he is someone who spends his life according exclusively to his parents, and not for himself. We recognize that through these examples of sources, the effects that immigrant parents have on their children is substantial, whether its detrimental or profitable.
The four people in our group are all teenagers who were raised by immigrant parents (more specifically Asian immigrant parents). We’ve spent our entire lives being taught and shaped under their guides and lessons. Some of us were even pressured to enroll into an enriched program to better ourselves. We can probably relate to this subject best, being that we know the same pain, and have experienced everything from our subject matter first-hand. We experience these actions and feelings targeted towards us for everyday that we live. We believe that we are the most educated, experienced and thoughtful examples to spread word on this topic to other people just like us. Because of this, we feel that we are eligible to discuss and share these stories with our target audiences.
Shower Thoughts 