Nailed it, Junot. I fight this daily. Got a diploma in DR (Mom's dream), left to the US shortly after to follow my own dream of touring in my band, and writing. I've been sending that remesa home since day 1. Doing everything from door to door sales, to office jobs (mom's dream) to make sure that money ships out every month. While I have toured the world on music (not for much money) and while I'm paying my way through learning to write (courses & editors costs money), it makes me feel like I'm never giving enough of myself to arts because well... money. It's exhausting to have one foot in each world.
I tell myself I'm being balanced. I wake up at 4 or 5 am so that I can get my art practice in before i clock in for anyone else. I make work-related decisions that allow me to tour or participate in writing sessions but I constantly ask myself "What If?" - What if I didn't take on the demanding jobs and lived even more frugally so I could fully do art with no strings attached? What if become struggling artist? The money to send home would be diminished, but I'd selfishly have more time to create.
Is balance ok? Did Picasso practice balance? Did Dali? Did Garcia Marquez? Did you when you did deliveries? But then again, they didn't have a Dominican mom. I just make sure I wake up to write and to practice and don't turn down opportunities, but from 9 to 5 I live family's dream.
The weight of knowing that you are the Plan, the only Plan, can shackle any bravery you can muster to pursue art. All the while you see yourself becoming your parents...where does it stop?
Beautiful, Junot. That pressure to succeed and make good in immigrant families is real. I think we all have to go on our journeys until we come to the realization that we don’t have to do it all--and more importantly, can’t do it all. Thankfully my mom was cool about it when I chose my own path. But I know a lot of immigrant kids who didn’t have it that easy. Sometimes the family pressure is real serious, which must be tough to contend with. Anyway, thank you for writing this and for sharing. It’s inspiring.
Pursuing your own dreams is a form of victory of the oppressor. Best revenge. It's also always a process and thank you for the reminder (I took 3 steps back during the pandemic to prioritize money and household).
I remember when I heard one of my white High school friends talking about not knowing if college was for her. My brain exploded because I had never heard someone willingly not go to college, like, that’s an option?
The one thing my PR parents ingrained in my brain: you’re going to college, if we gotta take out loans (which, unfortunately, I’m still paying back) you’re GOING to college. It def killed my parents when I chose an English major but I remember walking down the English department steps, after declaring myself an English major, and how the skylight flooded the stairwell with sun beams- it was a moment accompanied by a feeling that, these English people, they’re are my people. I’m home. I need to think about that moment more often. The moment I finally took hold of my future.
Much to their verbalized disappointment, I didn’t choose the path of becoming a dentist like my mom and dad wanted, but the other day my mom told me that I was born to be a writer and never were there words more encouraging. I forgot that last part until now that I’m writing it.
When I die, I just hope it’s my life that zooms through my mind, and not someone elses.
I worked selling flower and vegetable seeds door to door as a kid. I brought in the mail for two old neighbors during the winter months and shoveled snow. I raked leaves in the Fall, mowed lawns for 25 cents/hr in the summers and delivered the Boston Globe on my brother’s paper route. But obligations to family matters in later years were few. I was very driven to succeed as a composer/musician which happened in some ways, but not in others. Looking back, it almost makes me wish that I had pressing expectations to “help out the family…” It may have helped me to focus, to see the big picture and to come to terms with a few other imature things I had going on at the time.
Nailed it, Junot. I fight this daily. Got a diploma in DR (Mom's dream), left to the US shortly after to follow my own dream of touring in my band, and writing. I've been sending that remesa home since day 1. Doing everything from door to door sales, to office jobs (mom's dream) to make sure that money ships out every month. While I have toured the world on music (not for much money) and while I'm paying my way through learning to write (courses & editors costs money), it makes me feel like I'm never giving enough of myself to arts because well... money. It's exhausting to have one foot in each world.
I tell myself I'm being balanced. I wake up at 4 or 5 am so that I can get my art practice in before i clock in for anyone else. I make work-related decisions that allow me to tour or participate in writing sessions but I constantly ask myself "What If?" - What if I didn't take on the demanding jobs and lived even more frugally so I could fully do art with no strings attached? What if become struggling artist? The money to send home would be diminished, but I'd selfishly have more time to create.
Is balance ok? Did Picasso practice balance? Did Dali? Did Garcia Marquez? Did you when you did deliveries? But then again, they didn't have a Dominican mom. I just make sure I wake up to write and to practice and don't turn down opportunities, but from 9 to 5 I live family's dream.
feel you completely and need to say a little more on this theme precisely because of the question of balance. thank you paul
The weight of knowing that you are the Plan, the only Plan, can shackle any bravery you can muster to pursue art. All the while you see yourself becoming your parents...where does it stop?
Beautiful, Junot. That pressure to succeed and make good in immigrant families is real. I think we all have to go on our journeys until we come to the realization that we don’t have to do it all--and more importantly, can’t do it all. Thankfully my mom was cool about it when I chose my own path. But I know a lot of immigrant kids who didn’t have it that easy. Sometimes the family pressure is real serious, which must be tough to contend with. Anyway, thank you for writing this and for sharing. It’s inspiring.
This is the heart of the stuff that keeps me in the orbit of your words.
Pursuing your own dreams is a form of victory of the oppressor. Best revenge. It's also always a process and thank you for the reminder (I took 3 steps back during the pandemic to prioritize money and household).
Ugh. “OVER the oppressor.” Autocorrect.
Biutiful. Gracias mijo. (And thanks for the artwork you included.)
I remember when I heard one of my white High school friends talking about not knowing if college was for her. My brain exploded because I had never heard someone willingly not go to college, like, that’s an option?
The one thing my PR parents ingrained in my brain: you’re going to college, if we gotta take out loans (which, unfortunately, I’m still paying back) you’re GOING to college. It def killed my parents when I chose an English major but I remember walking down the English department steps, after declaring myself an English major, and how the skylight flooded the stairwell with sun beams- it was a moment accompanied by a feeling that, these English people, they’re are my people. I’m home. I need to think about that moment more often. The moment I finally took hold of my future.
Much to their verbalized disappointment, I didn’t choose the path of becoming a dentist like my mom and dad wanted, but the other day my mom told me that I was born to be a writer and never were there words more encouraging. I forgot that last part until now that I’m writing it.
Oct 26, 2023
When I die, I just hope it’s my life that zooms through my mind, and not someone elses.
I worked selling flower and vegetable seeds door to door as a kid. I brought in the mail for two old neighbors during the winter months and shoveled snow. I raked leaves in the Fall, mowed lawns for 25 cents/hr in the summers and delivered the Boston Globe on my brother’s paper route. But obligations to family matters in later years were few. I was very driven to succeed as a composer/musician which happened in some ways, but not in others. Looking back, it almost makes me wish that I had pressing expectations to “help out the family…” It may have helped me to focus, to see the big picture and to come to terms with a few other imature things I had going on at the time.