My parents are from a beautiful island, although it is stricken with danger at almost every corner you turn. Once I got older, I realized why they were what I interpreted as too strict. Being a first-generation American daughter in a small Florida town was extremely isolating. My parents put me in a private Christian school with very few kids who looked like me. I didn’t meet another first-generation Black girl in school until I was in the sixth grade. Growing up, it felt like I was in two different worlds each day: the one I tried to fit into and the one I thought I wanted to escape.
The woes of being a first-generation Black girl don’t have to be carried alone. I know this now, but I felt utterly lonesome before I found this epiphany. No one looked like me, and I felt immense pressure to perform well and be the perfect daughter. I’m also the oldest, and that was a task in and of itself. It felt like my parents always relied on me for everything. I didn’t get to go out much, which made me jealous of my friends and cling to them co-dependently. My friendships felt like small escapes from home; for once, I could just be a kid and not a mini adult who had to always be perfect. This isn’t a dig to my parents; my mom came to America at only 25 while she was still pregnant with me. Now that I’ve reached this age, I finally understand my mom. She’s just a girl doing the best she can.
Throughout school, it became clear that I would have to manage my emotions alone. Mental health was not a popular conversation in my home until I was in college. I have to give my mom props for her growth in that area; she sometimes asks me how my mental health is, which helps me feel more open to talk with her. Before then, though, it was hard to describe my emotions in words. I just felt othered, like I didn’t belong anywhere in particular. There is an interesting nuance to being a first-generation kid because you hear multiple narratives about what you can do with your life. At school, you’re taught to choose any path you please and make the most of it.
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Meanwhile, you’re taught to choose the most stable path at home: a doctor, lawyer, or adjacent. Once I was close to graduating high school, these choices weighed on me more and more until graduation. I couldn’t help but feel like a failure when I wasn’t at the top of my class like my parents had hoped I’d be. I took college courses while in high school with the hopes to get an associate’s degree by the time I graduated and was a few credits short on that too.
Once the conversation of college rolled around, I thought it’d be my chance to finally be my own person rather than this projection my parents had in their minds. As the first born, they considered me a good example to my siblings and always said family comes first. In turn, I never had the space to make mistakes, I felt anxious if I messed up. With that expectation of me and my Christian upbringing, you can only imagine how overwrought I was with thoughts of inadequacy and failure.
Turning 18 in an immigrant household does not mean you’re an adult by any means. All the same, the rules you’d followed before still apply. I didn’t get to stay out late, and when I finally got a car, I had to take my siblings to school, pick them up, take them to volleyball practice, go to church, and go to class. I felt trapped and envious of my friends who moved out. My parents encouraged me to stay home for college, and when I finally moved out at 21 to live on campus, I felt immensely guilty for leaving them.
My sister was having health issues, and I felt like I was leaving my family when they needed me the most, but moving out immediately regulated my nervous system. For so long, I didn’t move out because I felt like the glue of family, and if I left, everything would fall apart. In my culture, family is everything, and as a woman, you should move out when you’re getting married—unrealistic, I know, especially in my small town. I couldn’t imagine anyone even being attracted to me.
That’s another element that affected me heavily. Looking back, I wasn’t just playfully made fun of or bullied from time to time. I was experiencing racism that made me feel like I was nothing like I would never be seen as someone who could get a boyfriend, let alone start a life with. I never really told my parents because I didn’t want to burden them, and honestly, I didn’t want to seem too sensitive. Whenever I cried, my parents encouraged me to stop and be strong. I’ve had to work through that in therapy— it’s okay to cry and cry and cry. Holding it all in can kill you. I’ve had to unlearn what some racist classmates have done and said to me and unravel the pressure to be perfect. I so badly, even now, want to make my parents proud of me and, hopefully, take care of them in the future.
The toll of being a first-generation Black girl is heavy on your mental health. I’ve been recently diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder, nothing I am ashamed of. It’s good to know what I need to face. I think my whole family has anxiety. I read somewhere that Black women’s anxiety manifests as irritation, and it puts into perspective my mom’s love for me. Now I know that all this time, she’s just scared, not angry. At 25, I’m closer and more open with my parents and accept the criticisms I get occasionally. I’m not perfect, and I don’t think I fit the mold of what my parents had in mind for me, but that’s okay.
I’ve never been happier to be a disappointment because I’m making myself proud. I used to fear letting my parents down more than death. Now, even they accept me for who I am. With therapy, I’ve been able to come to terms with and process the pressure and anxiety I felt as a child into adulthood, and I highly recommend other Black first-generation daughters do so, too. There are so many of us out there, and luckily, with the internet, especially TikTok, we have the means to connect and encourage each other. Once I found my tribe of first gen friends, I realized I wasn’t alone in this, and you aren’t either.