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Regardless of bank balances, my family always seemed to live in a different era, one decades behind whatever the nor broke in the house, at any point over the years, it didn’t get fixed, certainly not by a professional Our house felt like so in constant need of maintenance I replaced the interior parts of each of the toilets in our house ed the coils in the leaky faucets until they leaked again When we had electrical issues in the kitchen,off the power, resulting in a melted screwdriver and shorted fuses When the upstairs toilet flooded, a square hole re afterward, where the plaster had been cut out and not replaced Ti would fail and our base would be done to prevent it froain
Two of the three entryways into our house had broken locks, which could be locked from the interior, but couldn’t be unlocked froot locked out of the house, and I’d resort to hoisting ht sill and launching myself into the house There was no one at hos when they broke, or to s, and I was limited in my skill set
It felt, in our household, as though no one was running it—not the sheer physical space, much less the more spiritual idea of a faave advice socially, on how to be successful in cos, instead, on what not to do, or as corrupt and tainted in South Korea, or, most of all, that I needed to study for my SATs Education had been his escape route to a better life, and my parents saw education as the one essential, the priht about physiological needs, the botto beyond the basic essentials of survival, the bareand love, esteem, self-actualization—were completely beyond him
Mythe breadwinner to take on additional responsibilities She kept crisp twenty-dollar bills, fresh fro, a black-and-white patterned thing that looked like a flattened cow, free from the Estée Lauder makeup counter at theroo, only refilled it when it was running low Her expectation was that when , ould take et it for ourselves It was somehow understood that this was a syste entrusted with responsibility My best friend growing up envied this systeot an allowance to spend, rather than access to a resource, without guidance in how to be
Having access to cash didn’t make money feel real As a child I still undertook tasks around the house for the arbitrary aned: a dollar to mow the back lawn, a dollar to clean the toilets, a dollar to vacuum the house, a dollar to rake up the leaves And soon the dollar amounts fell away, as she needed help to keep up witha household
My e battle, in which I would do so room, stack up blankets—and she would undo precisely what I had just done—knock over the blankets I had stacked, purposely create a onize
My s about us—that ere a family unit, that our resources were communal, in a way Americans wouldn’t understand My mother’s conception of family differed from the more individualistic e in ways similar to her model of family life, that ould each work toward the family’s best interests rather than our own individual ones, that fairness would rule
“I want to buy you your houses one day,” she toldup, because this was how she thought things should be In Korea most of her fa in one household
Eh Instead we tug-of-warred over resources, over who spent more where and how In later years, when my middle sister racked up tens of thousands of dollars in bills routinely, attending college and then dropping out, insisting on enrolling for a second arts degree, then dropping out again, fights were the norm, as we, as a faency bills My mother’s model of faue us
“Does she talk about Malala?” my friend asks
She and I laugh privately at this innocent question This is how American h at how here the script calls for her, as a Muslim woman, as a bisexual Pakistani, to play a certain role—the role of “victim,” as she sees it But it doesn’t resemble who she is, not really, not at all
She is Pakistani, proudly “Brown is beautiful,” she says, with those big eyes, after givingwhite people nearly exclusively
She is Muslim “I didn’t think of myself as Muslim until I came here,” she says And I understand precisely what she , protective of it, until others who don’t have grounds to speak—who aren’t of it—attack
“Inshallah,” she says, at ti,” and “God has willed it,” in turn Or “Hara forbidden
We joke, but her religion runs deep When faced with serious troubles, her first response is to pray