Fried Fish and Garlic

What Love Looks Like in Different Cultures and its Impact on Immigrant Children

My home often smelled like fried fish and garlic sizzling in hot oil.  It’s the love language I grew up with. 

Growing up, I spent countless Saturdays making hundreds of egg rolls with my mom, which we later shared with family, friends, and neighbors. Rather than seeing all of this as time well-spent, I thought of it as torture and cruelty—what kid would want to be trapped indoors, wrapping egg rolls all day?

When I gave birth to my daughter, no one came to the hospital. Days actually passed before my mother met her first grandchild. And to be honest, I didn’t want her there. Bringing my daughter into the world was a traumatic 55-hour ordeal, but I had never imagined or wanted her by my side. That simply wasn't the relationship we had. When she did show up—four days later, because she chose a time that was more convenient for her—she brought food.

These days, instead of offers to babysit or to play with my daughter, I get containers of grapes or a bag of vegetables I never asked for. I live ten minutes away, and still, weeks can pass without seeing my parents. When my dad does come by with food, he often does a quick drop off and quiet exit through the back. I sometimes feel like I spend more time with the Uber Eats driver than my own dad on these occasions.

I was raised in a culture rooted in obedience to elders, in sacrifice, restraint, and pragmatism. Fun was considered frivolous. Hard work was expected and rarely praised. Affection was even rarer. Beyond these Confucian values, there were deeper layers—generations shaped by imperialism, poverty, and war.  My parents grew up with barely enough to eat. There’s no space to talk about feelings when you’re stuck in a refugee camp, worried about finding clean water and rice.

Feeding your child food is love. The kind of love that's born not from words, but from war and from survival.

There’s a specific kind of wound that forms for children who live in this dual reality of how interactions with their parents are supposed to look like.

I grew up in the 1990s, where shows like Family Matters and Full House idealized American families full of hugs, apologies, encouragement, and emotional safety. I still remember watching scenes where Laura Winslow made mistakes, like selling a treasured family heirloom, and was met with compassion and understanding from her mother and grandmother. Her family used it as a moment to teach, to connect, to grow closer.

That kind of repair didn’t exist in my home. In fact, I would have been scolded and punished for that same mistake. Cultural divides create deep emotional fractures and confusion for children. When your lived experience doesn’t match what society tells you is normal, a rift forms between generations, and quiet resentment hardens over time. It doesn’t just damage your sense of self—it can haunt you for decades. I was 36 when I finally asked my therapist: "Is there something wrong with me?" I needed to know if there was something "wrong" that I could fix—so that I could be worthy of love. That's the inner child voice I lived with for more than three decades.

More Diverse Families in Popular Culture Today

Mainstream culture is starting to do better with embracing different types of families—from immigrant ones like mine, to LGBTQ+ families, children of in single parent households and more.  In Fresh Off the Boat season 1, 11-year-old Eddie Huang expresses interest in attending a sleepover, but his mom hesitates due to cultural norms and safety concerns. There are other TV shows too. Primos, an animated series on Disney, written in part by my friend Angela Sánchez, tells the story of a large, multicultural Mexican-American family. On Netflix, Princess Power features diverse princesses and includes a family with gay fathers, and Maid portrays the painful truth of a single mother fleeing abuse while trying to survive and raise her daughter.

And in literature, books like Pregnant Girl by Nicole Lynn Lewis give voice to the lived experiences of young and single mothers in college—experiences that are far more common than we think. Nearly 1 in 5 college students today are parents, but until recently, they’ve been rendered invisible. Nicole’s story, and the work of organizations like Generation Hope which she founded, are shifting that narrative, and helping families survive and

Embracing the Duality to Heal

Now, as a mother myself, I’m learning a deeper truth: Love is packaged differently in every family and every culture.  Our parents can only mirror the love that they know. True healing begins when we hold space for this truth.

It doesn’t mean we excuse harm or tolerate abuse, or say that neglect is OK. Healing means we choose to recognize their love language in the context of their culture, upbringing, and life experiences. Peace often comes once we choose the path of acceptance and forgiveness.

For me, healing means embracing love in both my upbringing and culture, and reclaiming my power. It means feeding a bowl of rice to my daughter, then doing our nighttime routine, which consists of a warm bath, bedtime stories, goodnight kisses, lullabies, and loving words of affirmation— none of which ever made their way into my childhood.

May you  plant the seeds for a different kind of love to bloom—like the ones I plant each day with Emma. 

What did love look like in your family growing up?