I’m sad to admit that I didn’t put as much interest in discovering more about my family’s roots until the last few years. I’ve heard a lot of people say they’re the same, but I know many people who have a long, detailed knowledge of their lineage and history, and it’s all fascinating. I always remembered hearing bits and pieces of stories as I grew up, but never pieced everything together into a full narrative.
The general overview is: My mom was born in San Francisco; her father emigrated from China when he was either 9 or 11, established himself in SF Chinatown, fought in WWII, went back to China afterwards and married my grandmother, moved back to the City and established a myriad of businesses. My dad’s father went from the Philippines to Hawaii, met my grandmother in Okinawa (where my dad was born) after the war, and moved back to Hawaii and ran a body shop that serviced the cars from the original Hawaii Five-O.
christino and fumiko dumlao in HI, 1992
I have yet to completely fill out either of these stories, but I’m trying to now and finding a ton of second-hand accounts. They have to be second-hand because all four of my grandparents have passed away. Not having been curious enough to absorb the rich history of both sides of my family when it was easiest to find out is one of my biggest regrets; even as I started to get more curious and ask my mom to ask old family friends for more stories and details, I learned that most of them had passed away too. As a result, though, my mom has gotten excited and started asking her siblings, cousins, and others more and more.
The stories I gather range from intriguing, to humorous, to shocking. The first time I went to New York, my mom mentioned that my great-grandfather had immigrated to Brooklyn separately from my grandfather; I spent a good amount of time trying to pinpoint his exact name and date in the Ellis Island registry until my mom found out he had actually just jumped ship illegally. My cousin told me that my mom’s father, who ran a shipping business in SF Chinatown, used to drive down to the Embarcadero when immigrant ships came in and pay the dock workers to gather all the Chinese people; he’d then bus them over to Chinatown, which I thought was pretty boss. On the other hand, my dad told me his mom had to hide in her classroom in Okinawa during WWII to avoid the Japanese soldiers, who told them the incoming American soldiers were going to kill them, and convinced many of them to commit suicide.
helen chin hong at her 80th birthday, 2005. oh and some obnoxious grandkid
I am definitely late to the party but I have become energized to gather as much as I can, and to truly understand where my roots have come from. I still have so much to cover to understand and appreciate my family’s journeys to the fullest. Each story I hear about my parents and grandparents makes me realize just how fortunate our generation is to have problems like not getting into our top-choice college, having to commute 30 minutes to a cushy career job, or being bored on a Saturday night. It’s cliché to say that, but that doesn’t make it any less important. We sit on Facebook all day having #fomo or comparing our lives to everyone else, but we’d be nowhere without the blood, sweat and tears of those that worked to push us here, and indeed I don’t think we are anything at all if we don’t try to learn about those struggles.
TL;DR: You should really ask as much as you can about your family roots while you still can; we aren’t anything without them.
