Below is an article about a Chinese immigrant father who lost his son due to a drunk driving accident and his reactions.
I guess I’m missing something. He made a stupid decision and paid for it with his life. Thousands of other young people drink and drive (or drive with someone who’s been drinking) from every different background under the sun. What does drinking and driving have to do with his heritage?
Yes, there should probably be support for first generation Asian Americans instead of assuming they fit the stereotypical Asian model student, but I’m not understanding the connection here.
I couldn’t figure out the angle of the article when I read it, either. It’s a sad story, but the "immigrant’ angle seems forced.
I suspect the logic goes something like this. You tell the kids and tell the kids not to get in a car with a driver who has been drinking. But sometimes, the desire to fit in and go along outweighs common sense. There are lots of reasons kids do stupid, dangerous things in an attempt to fit in. For this particular kid, his father thinks it was that, in the face of parental insistence on his Chinese identity, he was trying to be American, be just like everyone else as he perceived it.
Would more parental understanding about this kid’s struggles with his identity have made a difference? Who knows. But a grieving father is looking for some rhyme or reason about what happened and maybe looking to have something good come out of it.
It’s a sad story, but the issue has nothing uniquely do with being an immigrant. Wanting to fit in is part and parcel of being a teenager in America, regardless of race or national roots.