It's My Father's Birthday Today
Nov. 11th, 2004 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenI know to most of you, today is Veteran's Day. But to me, it's also my father's birthday today.
He was born in the city of Guangzhou (in Guangdong province) China, on November 11, 1928. He is one of 12 siblings in his family.
In the late 1800's, my father's grandfather was a Chinese laborer on the American transcontinental railroad. He saved money to send home. He went home after working for a few years, and my father's father was born, along with many others. The family traveled back and forth between the U.S. and China unimpeded by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, since by then they owned a dry good store (in San Francisco? Fresno?) and were therefore exempt since they fell into the "Merchants" exemption class.
Several of my father's older siblings were born in California. But the family continued to travel back and forth a lot, and spend stretches of years in Guangdong (where several of the middle children including my father were born). My grandfather was high up in the Guomindang and friends with Sun Yat Sen. When Chiang Kai Shek and Sun Yat Sen developed a rift in the Guomindang, and when the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang began to splinter their fragile alliance, my grandfather became worried. Then the Marco Polo bridge incident happened, and the Sino-Japanese war began.
It was time to leave for good.
In 1937, when my father was nine, my father boarded a cross-Pacific ship with his family (and almost slipped off the deck into the sea halfway across, saved by his brother grabbing his foot at the last second) to come the the U.S.
By 1942 (?), my father's two oldest brothers, Walt and Bob (U.S. citizens by birth) had enlisted in the Armed Forces and spent the rest of the war fighting in the Philippines.
Some of my earliest memories of my father are of him telling stories about how he wanted to enlist too, but was 4F, and too young, and how he worshiped his older brothers and worried about them, and how he collected aluminum for the war effort. He would remind us that the Chinese in California word special buttons to signify that they were Chinese and not Japanese, so they wouldn't get sent to the internment camps. My father's parents didn't read English, so my dad would read and translate Walt and Bob's letters home for them.
Decades later, my father (and mother) were big anti-war protesters during the Vietnam War.
However, I will always think of WWII as a war that was justified, because my dad's brothers fought in it. And for these reasons, Veteran's Day and my father's birthday have always seem conflated in my mind, not just because they are on the same day, but because of our family history. My father's WWII-engendered patriotism is stems from the desire of new immigrants in the 1940's to love the promising country they adopted, and out of gratefulness at America helping China in its long war with Japan. As an avid amateur singer, my dad's patriotism is also just a love of songs, anything from that era is especially evocative for him. And the key thing here is that his massive dislike of the Vietnam War and of our contemporary heinous government are not diametrically opposed to his ingrained patriotism from sixty-odd years ago. They are both part of the same desire to see the country improve, to see it overcome live up to the ideals of freedom and opportunity that drew immigrants here in the first place.
My father is 76 years old today. His leg was just re-amputated, higher up this time, and the prosthesis is now too big and heavy, making it hard to lift his leg or get through physical therapy to learn to walk on it. He's in a lot of pain, and is still not the same after the prostate cancer. But he is in good spirits, and when I called to wish him a happy birthday, he was HAPPY! Six professor friends from his teaching days took him and my sister out to dinner last night. My sister takes good care of him, driving him to all his medical appointments, helping around the house, and with shopping. I feel that happy knowing this. We weren't close when I was a child, but my father and I have grown closer since then, and I love him very much, and wish him as pain-free and happy a years to come as one could hope.
He was born in the city of Guangzhou (in Guangdong province) China, on November 11, 1928. He is one of 12 siblings in his family.
In the late 1800's, my father's grandfather was a Chinese laborer on the American transcontinental railroad. He saved money to send home. He went home after working for a few years, and my father's father was born, along with many others. The family traveled back and forth between the U.S. and China unimpeded by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, since by then they owned a dry good store (in San Francisco? Fresno?) and were therefore exempt since they fell into the "Merchants" exemption class.
Several of my father's older siblings were born in California. But the family continued to travel back and forth a lot, and spend stretches of years in Guangdong (where several of the middle children including my father were born). My grandfather was high up in the Guomindang and friends with Sun Yat Sen. When Chiang Kai Shek and Sun Yat Sen developed a rift in the Guomindang, and when the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang began to splinter their fragile alliance, my grandfather became worried. Then the Marco Polo bridge incident happened, and the Sino-Japanese war began.
It was time to leave for good.
In 1937, when my father was nine, my father boarded a cross-Pacific ship with his family (and almost slipped off the deck into the sea halfway across, saved by his brother grabbing his foot at the last second) to come the the U.S.
By 1942 (?), my father's two oldest brothers, Walt and Bob (U.S. citizens by birth) had enlisted in the Armed Forces and spent the rest of the war fighting in the Philippines.
Some of my earliest memories of my father are of him telling stories about how he wanted to enlist too, but was 4F, and too young, and how he worshiped his older brothers and worried about them, and how he collected aluminum for the war effort. He would remind us that the Chinese in California word special buttons to signify that they were Chinese and not Japanese, so they wouldn't get sent to the internment camps. My father's parents didn't read English, so my dad would read and translate Walt and Bob's letters home for them.
Decades later, my father (and mother) were big anti-war protesters during the Vietnam War.
However, I will always think of WWII as a war that was justified, because my dad's brothers fought in it. And for these reasons, Veteran's Day and my father's birthday have always seem conflated in my mind, not just because they are on the same day, but because of our family history. My father's WWII-engendered patriotism is stems from the desire of new immigrants in the 1940's to love the promising country they adopted, and out of gratefulness at America helping China in its long war with Japan. As an avid amateur singer, my dad's patriotism is also just a love of songs, anything from that era is especially evocative for him. And the key thing here is that his massive dislike of the Vietnam War and of our contemporary heinous government are not diametrically opposed to his ingrained patriotism from sixty-odd years ago. They are both part of the same desire to see the country improve, to see it overcome live up to the ideals of freedom and opportunity that drew immigrants here in the first place.
My father is 76 years old today. His leg was just re-amputated, higher up this time, and the prosthesis is now too big and heavy, making it hard to lift his leg or get through physical therapy to learn to walk on it. He's in a lot of pain, and is still not the same after the prostate cancer. But he is in good spirits, and when I called to wish him a happy birthday, he was HAPPY! Six professor friends from his teaching days took him and my sister out to dinner last night. My sister takes good care of him, driving him to all his medical appointments, helping around the house, and with shopping. I feel that happy knowing this. We weren't close when I was a child, but my father and I have grown closer since then, and I love him very much, and wish him as pain-free and happy a years to come as one could hope.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-11 07:15 pm (UTC)And hooray for his good spirits today, despite everything else he's dealing with.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-11 09:50 pm (UTC)Thanks.