Somewhere In between

On being first-gen, building the bridge, losing yourself, and finding your way back

The Unspoken Contract

If you're first-generation America, this may resonate.

There's an inherited contract you signed that was never written down, never openly discussed, and never negotiated. 

Like, be the model for your siblings. Don't mess up. Don't complain. Remember the sacrifice -  “we gave up everything so you could have this life.”

And you know what? You can't even be mad about it, because the sacrifice was real.

Your parents did leave everything, and they did have to start over. So you keep your mouth shut and keep it moving.

The child who became the parent

Some of the things we don’t acknowledge or talk about is when a family immigrates, the child  becoming the parent.

You're 10, 12, 15 years old, sitting in appointments, translating documents, explaining American systems to adults who are supposed to be taking care of you. You're navigating school while also navigating your parents' discomfort with a country that doesn't make sense to them. And while you're doing all that, nobody is asking how YOU'RE doing. Nobody acknowledges that you lost something too. You left friends, left your family and the place that made sense to you. You left home. But your thoughts and feelings get swallowed up in the story of "we did this for you."

Perform peace, bury the loss

So you learn to perform, because anything else feels ungrateful or like a betrayal.

You smile when relatives ask how you like America. You say "it's great" when teachers ask if you're adjusting. You don't talk about the loneliness, the confusion, the way you feel like you're living someone else's dream.

Instead, you internalize everything. You can't mess up because your parents gave up so much. You can't struggle because that would mean their sacrifice was wasted and you can't fall apart because you're the one holding everyone else together.

A quiet urban street symbolizing the journey of first-generation individuals

Too American, not American enough

And then comes the other side of it.

You spend years learning how to survive here. You adapt - You pick up the language, the culture, the way things work and you figure out how to move through spaces your parents can't or won’t access.

And then one day, you express an opinion. You push back on something. You think for yourself.

And suddenly you're "too Americanized."

You hear that “you've forgotten where you came from. You think you're better than everyone. You've lost your culture.”

The same adaptation that was required of you - the thing that allowed you to be the bridge - is now held against you. And the kicker is, you were never given the tools to manage both, honoring the sacrifice of your culture, and being American enough to succeed. You were just expected to figure it out.

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

A journal symbolizing personal storytelling and identity exploration

The identity that got lost

So who are you now?

You’re not the Caribbean - or whatever your cultural background - child you might have been if you'd stayed, and not the fully American kid who got to grow up here without this weight. You're somewhere in between.

And that duality isn't a weakness. It's the natural result of being asked to be everything for everyone while having no space to just be yourself.

What I want you to know

If this is your story, or something close to it, I want you to know a few things:

Your loss was real, even if nobody acknowledged it. You lost something when you left and you're allowed to grieve that.

The weight wasn't yours to carry. You were a child. The responsibility of saving the family, bridging the gap, making the sacrifice worth it, was too much to put on you, and it wasn't fair, even if it was done with love.

The work now

Healing from this isn't about rejecting your family or your culture. It's about separating what's yours from what was placed on you, and building an identity that can include where you came from and where you are now.

If you're a first-gen immigrant carrying weight that was never yours to hold, there are people who understand. Who've walked this path and who can sit with you while you figure out who you actually are underneath all the expectations.

You've spent a long time being the bridge for everyone else.

Maybe it's time to build something for yourself.