Joan Is Okay

In Fang’s guest house, Joan struggles to sleep. She thinks about her brother, her parents, and what it is like to grow up as a child of immigrants. Fang is particularly attuned to the history of Chinese people in the United States, and he has pointed out to Joan on many occasions that Americans have been particularly biased against various waves of Chinese immigrants; moreover, unlike with other immigrant groups, this bias has been evident not only in person-to-person interactions but also in government policy. Joan knows that, although her brother believes that he personally has much to overcome, Fang is laser-focused on building wealth so that he can provide a safety net for his children. For Fang, “success” for immigrants is a three-step process: The first generation takes any job that they can find in order to help the second generation obtain a high-quality education. The second generation then does its best to guarantee the long-term financial health of the third generation. Although there is much about Fang that Joan criticizes, she understands that for each of them, albeit in different ways, regaining the control and self-determination that their parents lost when they immigrated is of the utmost importance.