Sunday Slivers, 9/4/11: Immigrant

I wish I could write eloquently about the immigrant experience. It's been more than a decade since I irretrievably crossed the Atlantic, and yet daily life still feels novel, fluid, and unsettled. Some days I barely think about having grown up in one place and living in another, but more often than not I am acutely aware of my "otherness"--our "otherness," now that two of us immigrants have given life to two children, who are growing up bi-lingual, speaking the language of a country they have never visited.

I dislike the affectation of the term "otherness," and I am wary of many of the assumptions of cultural relativism. Like most people, I believe in universal values of human decency, and I believe that much, but not all, depends on one's particular "geolocation" and place in time.

Having grown up in a world so different from theirs, I struggle daily with how to impart to my children a strong sense of belonging to their birth country, while offering them healthy doses of outside perspective. I want them to understand baseball, without feeling a compulsion to play it; I'd like them to know what Sesame Street is, without thinking they have to watch it; I'd like them to have access to the best education this country has to offer, without automatically bowing to cultural pressure to fit the very particular bill of a well-rounded person whose resume will impress an Ivy League admissions committee; I'd like them to participate in Halloween or not, as they see fit, and to play soccer on weekends only if they feel like it. I want them to embrace the small, while seeing the big, picture.

It's not always easy to find the balance, and I question my parenting credentials with predictable regularity a few times each week. Our kids don't know the rules of baseball; Sesame Street has never been played on a screen in our house; and so far at least, we've allowed our children complete freedom to do whatever interests them in their free time. Their lives, and ours, are unfashionably unscheduled.

All this, believe it or not, is a very roundabout way of saying that I didn't much like going to an amusement park this weekend. Sava had never been to one, and since it was his turn to plan our Sunday morning, he said an enthusiastic yes to his best preschool buddy's suggestion to visit the zoo and amusement park in San Jose.

That both our kids had crossed the threshold of sanity by the end of the six hours we spent there is either beside the point or completely relevant: beside the point because I wouldn't have liked the experience anyway; relevant because it confirmed my impression that the place epitomized a certain tendency to excess in American culture, which offers the perfect example of something I'd like my children to both embrace sympathetically and understand critically. I'd like them to enjoy the fun rides and feel energized by a space created specifically for amusement. I'd like them to understand, eventually, that this compulsion to entertain and be entertained is very specific to the country they happen to have been born in, and that there are many more, and more profound, ways of finding and experiencing joy in life. Yes, I know...they are only two and five years old, and who cares if they understand the cultural implications of an amusement park, but it feels good to have ideals anyway. Some day they might thank us, or they might likely will take up the issue with their therapists.

(Just for the record, Raya rode alone both rides that Sava and his friend rode individually and together, and she screamed hysterically when we attempted to give her a rational explanation for why she needs to be 36" tall in order to ride the roller coaster. I am pretty sure she wouldn't have noticed if we had come back home and left her there "by myself.")
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While browsing through the photos this week, I noticed that all of a sudden, one can see glimmers of the girl appearing in her; still plenty of toddler chub, but underneath, a pensiveness that makes me pause.

Rado tells me that while waiting in front of the bathroom to get her poopy diaper changed today, she started to whimper quietly, and when Rado asked her why, she said, The poop is getting old...

It's a little over two weeks since I started speaking English to her, and she still speaks plenty of Bulgarian, especially with the helpful presence of grandpa, but can make more and more of herself understood in English. She'll also often fill in a word from the other language, whenever the word in the right language doesn't come to mind, and sometimes, when tired, will babble in "tongues" that are hilarious.

She's such a tomboy sometimes,

and such a girl at other times.

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We went to Back to School night for Sava's Kindergarten this week. We learned he is in a group of "readers," which surprised us because for the most part he refuses to let on how much he is able to read.

It seems that he is having some trouble finding boys who, like him, do not enjoy rough play, so we're sitting on the sidelines a tad anxiously, hoping that he finds a playmate. I suppose finding people they care for, and who care for them, is our dearest hope (only hope, really) for both of our children. All else are passing trifles anyway.

He is so sweet, thoughtful, and diligent. Such a caring, deep soul.

I'd like sometimes to put a sign on his back advertising all his qualities, which he wouldn't be able to see and others would, but I know that slogans are superficial anyway. Sooner or later, others are bound to recognize his innate goodness.
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Thankfully, before the madness of today's amusement park, we went on a salutary walk to Hidden Villa yesterday. Oh, the difference.

Sava got a "nature box" in his science class, which he was eager to fill with specimens.

That he loves flowers, and seeks them out, does not cease to amaze me.

The creek was almost, but not quite, dry, so splashing and wetness were had.

It was a good, quiet outing, of the sort which invites introspection, rather than overstimulation and hyperactivity. Blah blah.

I hope they remember it better than the amusement park, but I am sure that I hope in vain.

don't be fooled; she is just licking that apple, not eating it

It's all about roots, baby. All about roots.

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Lastly, my favorite images from the week of sibling care. He loves teaching her.

And she loves wrestling him, hugging him, squeezing him, reducing him to fits of laughter.

 Happy new week to all.