How to Tell Your Immigrant Parents You Want to be a Creative
Have empathy for them, re-frame the conversation, and approach it as an opportunity for you to connect and grow closer.
It’s a tale as old as time…Immigrant parents (or just parents in general) discouraging creative pursuits in favor of more lucrative and prestigious jobs like being a doctor, lawyer, or engineer (“D/L/E”). In the Asian American community, this ethos leaves us with lots of working professionals who have spent their entire lives studying but never exploring their creative abilities. To combat this, I speak at conferences for young Asian Americans teaching them how to follow their creative interests, trying to be a voice of encouragement that they perhaps never had. But inevitably in my talks, I always get asked The Question:
“I want to be an artist, but my parents want me to be a D/L/E. How do I tell them??”
Before you even think about approaching them, put yourself in their shoes. All parents make sacrifices for their children, but some immigrant parents did more than that. They may have experienced real trauma that left a lasting effect on their worldview and how they define safety and security. Before you think about yourself and what you want, try to have some sympathy, understanding, and curiosity for their experience, and WHY they may want the things they want.
If your parents came here because of a war or poverty, they came from a situation where they could not be free. Where freedom and happiness were either in short supply or diminishing rapidly due to famine, violence, or worse. Those who came escaping oppression came so they (and you) would not have to live in shackles or in sadness. But something happens to the mind when you lose or are stripped of everything you know and hold dear.
Think of it like this: if you have an experience where you almost drown, you probably won’t want to go near water again, because the very sight of water may trigger fear, terror, and make you feel like you are drowning all over again. And that fear doesn’t just go away, it sticks with you, sometimes for life. Some might call this Post Traumatic Stress. Having lost almost everything when coming here, many Asian American immigrants had that experience of almost drowning (some quite literally). After such a traumatic experience, having material things helps create a sense of security in them that, without which, they may feel dangerously exposed. Even if they did not starve or almost die, they most certainly lost family ties, friends, culture, and political/economic power by leaving their home country. And when you’ve been rendered powerless, the desire to regain that power can become all-consuming. This mindset makes financial success look like a life-raft in the middle of a tempestuous ocean.
If your parents came here as educated professionals (usually on an H1B Visa), then their desires are probably not rooted in trauma, as their immigration was more voluntary, but you can still imagine what they might have lost. Being educated enough to immigrate on an H1B Visa must have meant they had a good amount of social standing in their home country, possibly even as D/L/Es themselves. Coming to the US where they are then put at the bottom of a social hierarchy simply because they’re brown and born somewhere else was probably a huge blow to their self esteem. They might be upset about being made to feel inferior. They might have a chip on their shoulder and want you to be “successful” to further prove to the rest of America that they are good enough to belong here and be seen as equals. They may be using you to regain their social standing, as an extension of their status. As before, this desire comes from a place of scarcity — the fear that they will lose more than they’ve already lost.
It’s also important to remind yourself that immigrant parents are also a lot more savvy than we sometimes take them for, and they are keenly aware of the fact that White support systems were designed to help White people. So they either are aware that the system is not going to help you, or they know that becoming a D/L/E is part of aligning yourself with that system as a strategy for regaining power. Either way, without a strong system of support to lift you up, they know it will be an uphill battle to get to careers of safety and security. Combine this with our pre-existing cultural desires for high-achievement, and you’ve got a potent cocktail of pressures that come from culture, fear, insecurity, and first-hand experience with American racism. Once you put yourself in those shoes, being a D/L/E starts to make a lot of sense.
When you do finally approach your parents, think carefully about how you frame the discussion. If you frame it as “I don’t like medicine,” or “I don’t want to be a doctor”, it makes you sound like you’re complaining, or that you’re simply basing the decision on a whim. It also makes you sound like you’ve made up your mind and you are standing in defiance, instead of letting them into the discussion. “I don’t want to be a doctor,” sounds a lot like, “I don’t want to go to bed,” and your parents — who still think of you as a child — will have a hard time not hearing the latter.
Instead, approach your parents in the way that parents have always wanted to be approached since time immemorial: As trusted mentors who have important wisdom to impart. Ask for their guidance and they will feel like collaborators in the decision-making process. Then be curious about their desires. Instead of getting defensive and making defiant statements, ask lots of questions. “I’m curious, why is it important to you that I become a doctor?” And when they express their concerns about safety, security, and stability, don’t contradict them or disagree with them. While informational statements can be deemed true or false, feelings are always true to the person expressing them, and to argue against someone’s feelings is to tell them they are lying. Instead, hear them out, as it could be an opportunity to get to know them better and grow closer to them.
They don’t know what’s going on in your mind. They’re worried you might be trying to avoid the hard work it takes to become a doctor, and that if you could just suck it up for a few years, you might learn to love it. So you have to convince them that you’ve actually thought it through. They don’t want you making decisions on a whim, so tell them that you’ve done research and you’ve created a plan (oh, and do some research and create a plan). Your parents didn’t raise no fool…they want to know that you’re not just going into the world blind, that you’re approaching everything with intelligence and preparation. Then, frame your perspective in terms that they will resonate with. Instead of talking about what you don’t want, say, “I know that if I become a doctor, I will spend the rest of my life being unhappy.” If they love you, this will strike a chord with them. No one wants anything bad to happen to their child, so if you frame it as something bad happening to you, this shifts the conversation. Remember, if your parents came here escaping persecution, then freedom from oppression is the real dream they wanted for you, and if that freedom is in peril, they will respond. Tell them that being a D/L/E will turn your life into a prison. The last thing they want is for you to be miserable.
It’s possible that feelings of shame might be preventing you from even broaching the subject. You know they sacrificed for you, and it can make you feel like you’re being ungrateful. But feeling this way automatically frames your desires as being at odds with theirs, when in fact your desires are actually aligned, they’re just being expressed differently. Tell them that you’re not ungrateful for their sacrifice at all, in fact you think about it all the time. It drives you. You want to honor their sacrifice by achieving liberty from oppression. Not through money, but spiritually and emotionally (which money can’t buy). And that means being in control of your own life. Frame it as a matter of agency, rather than a matter of desire, and that you are doing it for them and with them, not totally for yourself.
They might say that they don’t want you to struggle to make ends meet — that artists rarely have money. Tell them that while the “starving artist” stereotype may have been a reality in the decades past, this is not completely true in today’s world. Being an artist is akin to starting your own business, and the chances of making good money are the same as with any business. Craft, along with marketing and business savvy will determine success. And those things can be studied in the same way one studies medicine and law.
Artists are entrepreneurs. And as an entrepreneur, you’ll have to work hard in order to make it. Which should dispel any idea that you are trying to avoid hard work. Quite the opposite, in fact. Tell them that you are willing to take on hard work for the sake of your art. As Asians, your parents will understand dedication to craft, but you have to prove it. After all, they watched you grow up. Maybe they saw you shirk a piano practice here and there or watch TV instead of studying. Let them know that you take this very seriously. Prove to them that you are driven enough that you will do what it takes to be successful in this field.
Lastly — and this is perhaps the most difficult part — try to shift your parents’ mindset from one of scarcity to one of abundance. Whether they were refugees or H1Bs, they feel that they have lost something (power, social standing, money, etc.) and to them the D/L/E title represents the return of what they have lost. But the danger of this mindset is that it makes them overlook the things they already have. It probably even made them overlook your accomplishments and focus on your shortcomings while you were growing up, which probably drove you crazy. Shifting a mindset from scarcity to abundance doesn’t happen overnight, but if you go into the conversation knowing that they are going to focus on what they — or you — lack, then instead of retaliating with more negativity, you can embrace their point of view in the loving and accepting arms of abundance and assure them that: you have done your research; you are aware of the risks; you have fall-backs and contingency plans; you have contacts, friends, and mentors who will help you; the industry for your art is robust, booming, and filled with opportunities; there is money and status to be made there; and you are an intelligent, savvy, well-rounded adult who is going to attain success no matter what because they were raised by amazing parents (wink).
Instead of coming to them with defiance, come to them with empathy, understanding, and curiosity. Treat them as mentors, and approach them with a spirit of collaboration. Really listen to their concerns. Make them feel heard. Then show them that you want the same things. You both want the best for you. You both want financial security. You are willing to work hard for it because you are dedicated to your craft. Frame this not as a selfish desire, but instead as an inevitable driving force that compels you. Frame this not as a passing interest that you want to try out, but something that you were meant to do and that you’re dedicated to making work. Combat their scarcity mindset by showing them the abundance of resources and opportunities that exist. And lastly, instead of feeling shame from their sacrifice, honor it and let it inspire you.
(And if, after all that, they still resist your wishes to be a creative and you feel like you must obey them and become a D/L/E, then be sure to read my upcoming article on how to do both.)
