My comment is reposted from http://www.racialicious.com/2012/03/29/3-29-12-links-roundup/ I don't know what it's like to be a parent. I don't know what it's like to be an immigrant, either. But it seems to me that parents and immigrants have one big thing in common, which is magnified to an extreme when one is both an immigrant and a parent: The drive to remake social class. The cross-section of immigrants who move from say, China to the United States, does not reflect the Chinese population as a whole. I imagine that China has a great diversity of people, rich and poor, with varying educations and occupations. However, for myriad socioeconomic and political reasons, most Chinese immigrants to the United States have been extremely poor, uneducated people from Cantonese-speaking regions near the Pearl River delta. This is where my ancestors are from. Who are immigrants? Immigrants are the kind of people who are in a life situation that drives them to immigrate. There are wealthy and educated people who immigrate because they can. But if they have it so good in their home country, why don't they just stay? Indeed, the vast majority of people who immigrate do so out of desperation. They have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of their former countrymen. But they don't immigrate just because they have no choice. They deliberately choose to uproot from their home, the place where generations upon generations of their ancestors may have lived, and they choose to go to another country where they don't know the language or culture, and have very little in terms of training or skills to offer their new home. They will undoubtedly face prejudice, and start off in an even lower and more isolated social position than they occupied before. Each individual has his or her own personal reasons for immigrating, but they share a common dream. And "dream" is perhaps the most apt description for this idea, because it really seems delusional and far-fetched when met with stark reality. The idea is that by immigrating, one can remake the social class of one's family. The concept seems well-supported by statistics and anecdotal evidence. The success of some Asian Americans in business and education is frequently reported in the media. However, the fallacy of the model minority stereotype has been broken down and explained quite thoroughly by others. What I want to point out is the obsession that many immigrant parents have with the notion that one can deliberately change one's social class. They typically begin with the assumption that social class is the most important determinant of one's life value. Obviously, social class has a big impact on one's outlook, but in America, where people from wildly contrasting income levels all consider themselves to be "middle class," and privileged hipsters deliberately alter their dress and appearance to seem more lower class, social class is far more nebulous and disconnected from one's actual income or lifestyle than in more traditional cultures. Still, many immigrant parents push their kids to play the piano. Not because learning piano gives one a lifelong sense of accomplishment and appreciation of the beauty of music, or that musicians tend to be more intelligent and do better in school, or that playing piano makes picking up a secondary instrument easier, or that joining the school band or orchestra is a fun way to make friends and learn teamwork, etc., but because, as the author mentioned, of a quaint Victorian ideal of the child being trotted out to demonstrate one's high social class by way of piano recital. Thus, we get an awkward situation in the child's teenage years (if he or she hasn't quit out of frustration with the fact that most traditional piano lessons don't actually teach music at all, but simple rote memorization), where the child discovers rock music and suddenly music is a very, very bad thing. I was one of those kids who took piano lessons, and although I never found them miserable, I was extremely bored until I started experimenting on my own with the kind of music I heard on the radio. I developed an understanding and appreciation of music and joined the school band, which was one of the best decisions I've ever made. In high school, I decided to play drums in a rock band--this was my fourth or fifth instrument--and combined with the fact that I wasn't making straight As anymore, this was a huge item of concern for my parents. That was when I realized that immigrant parents don't want their kids to become musicians at all, but simply to put off the image of being of a higher social class because they play an instrument. Big difference. I don't want to be too hard on my parents because I am grateful that they started me on piano lessons in the first place, and they've been more tolerant of my love for music ever since they killed the idea of my ever doing it for a living. But there is a problem with a society that encourages kids to play music, then suddenly discourages them from playing music. Maybe it's different if your parents are musicians and actually understand how fun and enjoyable music can be. But if it's just for image, just for show, just for class, then that's a delusion, not a dream.