My father was born in southern China and my mother was born near Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong. My father immigrated to the US when he was 11 years old with his mother and a younger brother. His father, my grandfather, came to the US and somehow joined the US military. We’re not sure how exactly he made his way to the US. My mother came to the US when my father went to Hong Kong to “find a wife” and they met and married within 3 weeks...or at least that’s how the story goes. Me, my siblings, and cousins are mostly first generation born in the US, have all attended college and earned terminal degrees in graduate school and work professionally to contribute to our communities across the United States and in Hong Kong. My grandmother worked in the sweatshops in Boston’s Chinatown and never had the opportunity (or perhaps not even allowed) to learn more fluent English as she was busy raising 5 children as a young widow. I’m grateful that my grandparents took the risk to arrive in Boston as immigrants so they and the rest of my family may have better lives and to add to the richness of the US.