How much of your own experiences that shaped your character will be passed on to your children? Will they be able to learn the same lessons you learned the hard way, i.e. by experience, or the easy way, i.e. by you teaching them?
I think this is a struggle that every family in America must contend with, and is especially true with immigrant families, as Seema Jilani describes. In America, there is at once a sense of the nation being a “cultural melting pot,” but within those groups, there is a rising tide of resistance that those original cultures should not be amalgamated in entirety such that their ideals are erased forever.
Jilani has a powerful testament to her own upbringing in America, using the metaphor of the hyphen:
At the dinner table, my father once coached us, “When people ask you where you’re from, what do you say?” I guessed, “Pakistani-American?”
“Wrong. You are American. Period. Lose the hyphen.”
That hyphen held our traditions, our dichotomies, our complexities, our spicy food and an even spicier culture, rich with tradition. That hyphen was the bridge to our past.
Seema Jilani
I think that there are two meanings to this. The hyphen is important; it contains the history of a family and the culture and values they bring with them. Those should not be forgotten. But ultimately, we are Americans first.
We all have a hyphen; it may not be another country, but that hyphen is by definition a part of America, and that should not be forgotten either.
Dossier
“My Daughter Passes for White,” by Seema Jilani, February 28, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/opinion/biracial-pakistani-child.html