Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, starting a two-day calling special now for first or second-generation immigrants starting now and continuing in the same time slot tomorrow. How are you most like your parents and how are you most different from your parents for having grown up here. I'll throw one other wrinkle line here, which is that I wonder if it's different today than it was generations to go. That is, the ways that you're similar or different from your immigrant parents. Is it changing from past years with today's notions of identity and politics?

Maybe you're more interested in preserving traditions and your parents have been the ones promoting more assimilation for more success in America or anything else that makes it maybe different in 2021 than it was 20-years-ago or 40-years-ago. When we do part two tomorrow for callers over 40, maybe we'll hear some of those differences expressed if they exist, but today for people under 40 and Lorraine in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lorraine. Thanks so much for calling up.

Lorraine: Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: What are you thinking, a similarity or a difference?

Lorraine: There are definitely similarities and differences. I'm first-generation, I'm 37-years-old, my parents are from Haiti. I'm a mom myself and where I see we're the same is with regards to the importance you place on education. I'm pretty strict with my daughter with regards to studying and getting homework done and getting enough sleep so that she can function at school the next day. Where we differ is with regards to household chores and the roles males versus females play in the home. Where the woman would take care of cooking, cleaning, looking after the kids more so and the males would just work and provide and be served. I rebelled against that.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have any conflict with your mom or your dad over that?

Lorraine: I did as a child, they would call me into the kitchen and the cook or mom would call me into the kitchen to cook and my brother would be outside playing, and we'd get into it because I'd say, "Why do I have to come in and cook and he can stay outside and play?"

Brian Lehrer: Did they ever get it and flip the script at all and make him [inaudible 00:02:49] in the kitchen too?

Lorraine: No, but he grew up and decided he wanted to learn on his own. They would just tell me that we're Haitian and I'm like, "We are in American." They're like, "We're in a Haitian household so this is how things are."

Brian Lehrer: US-born people had the same tender roles, a generation ago and it's still being fought. Lorraine, thank you very much. Great start. Eddie in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi Eddie?

Eddie: Hi, Brian. I did not expect to get on, it's really a pleasure to talk to you. I hope my mom is listening. I wanted to say my parents are both immigrants, my dad is from Egypt and my mom is from the Dominican Republic, truly a New York story. I think one thing that I share with them and this wasn't really the question, but I think it's different that makes immigrant families a little different than American-born families is, we all have a certain sense of pride, patriotism and I think we have real hope in the American dream.

It may be naïve that I think you don't see from a lot of people. I look around at my peers and there's always younger folks are more prone to dissatisfaction, let's say. I think listening to the experience of immigrants who left everything they knew back in their home country, left their families, left their jobs. Oftentimes didn't speak the language and they came here for the hope of a better life and for a better life for their kids and I think that's something unique to first-gen families.

Brian Lehrer: Less of an inclination than people born here. This is really more of a difference between you and people born here. If I'm hearing you than you and your parents, but it's less of an inclination to be cynical about conditions in the United States?

Eddie: Absolutely. I would phrase it a little differently. I think it's more of an inclination to be hopeful, to see the positives, to keep your eye on the big picture of this American project and this big experiment that we're all trying here. I personally, this is something I feel with my family, I don't think I could exist without this country, I don't think my parents would meet anywhere else in the world, literally. There's a great hope and a great pride that I feel, that I share with my parents.

It's good to be cynical and critical and to maintain an objective eye. I hope that folks, my age and younger can keep some perspective. Especially we look at the images and this is a little more political, but we look at the images coming out of Afghanistan and you see how desperate folks are to leave that country, obviously, for safety reasons but also for the hope of coming here, of joining us, of being woven into the fabric of our country. That's really powerful and I hope people don't forget it.

Brian Lehrer: Eddie, thank you so much for your call. Call us again. Chrissy in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi Chrissy?

Chrissy: Hi. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. Where did your family come from? When? Were you born here?

Chrissy: I was born in Mexico.

Brian Lehrer: You were born in Mexico?

Chrissy: Then when I came here, I was three years old. I grew up with my mom listening to NPR almost every day in the morning.

Brian Lehrer: My sympathies.

Chrissy: I'm pretty obviously like rural. Last year, it was Mexican elections and I don't know anything about Mexican politics. My father told me that he was voting and I thought that was really exciting. He goes, "Blue all the way." I say, "Amazing, dad. That's so progressive of you." He's a little bit older and conservative in Mexico. He goes, "Yes, I'm conservative." I was like, "What? What are you talking about?" In Mexico, blue means conservative, but it was a shock. It was pretty funny for me.

Brian Lehrer: What does conservative in the US context mean for your father who's an immigrant from Mexico?

Chrissy: He lives in Mexico, so I should have started with that, I'm sorry. His blue is like our red, so it's about taxes and women's rights and all sorts of things that I don't think that listeners to NPR can get together with.

Brian Lehrer: Chrissy, I hear you. Thank you very much. Angelica and we have all listeners to NPR stations, but Angelica in Nutley, you're on WNYC. Hi Angelica?

Angelica: Hi Brian. Thanks for having me, I love your show.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Angelica: I am a first-generation born in the US, my parents are Italian Immigrants and they moved, my father when he was middle school age and my mother when she was almost an adult. I think one of the interesting things about being the child of immigrants is we have a bit of an identity crisis. We also have this, my parents have this need to preserve a culture, to preserve all these traditions that ironically don't even exist in Italy anymore. I think just because I lived there for six years, my husband is Italian. Like he only moved to New Jersey a couple of years ago, so it's interesting.

These things that we do that we think we're preserving culture, Italians in Italy don't actually do anymore. When it comes to family values, when I moved away for college, my mother was like, "Oh, why do you need to go and live on your own? You're not married yet." I'm like, "Ma, it's just easier instead of me having to drive two hours to school like I could just rent an apartment." Although, I would never have done that. I would have waited to get married to move out of my mother's house or like--

Brian Lehrer: How do you understand the impulse that your parents have to preserve Italian things that they don't even preserve in Italy? What's it about do you think?

Angelica: I think it goes back to that identity crisis. You come here, you don't know what's going on with the language, you don't know the culture and you just try to grapple to what you know. I think a lot of people, they gravitate towards what they know. They're trying to hold on to that, that sense of identity. New York City is a scary place to be in and you don't understand anything. I think that's maybe why they try to preserve that culture that bit. They're just trying to hold on to what they know for that sense of safety.

Brian Lehrer: A sense of safety. Angelica, thank you so much. Hayk in Brooklyn, you are on WNYC. Hello, Hayk.

Hayk: Hi, Brian. My family and I moved here from Armenia in 1995. I was about 10. My mom was, at that time, the age that I'm now 35. There's an interesting generational split. In that my mom kind of experienced the Soviet Union in its heyday and then saw it collapse. When I was born, it was towards the end, so I didn't really have an experience with it. I think the more we live in the US, the more we see those things reflect in the way we engage with politics. I think outside of events, and people like Bernie Sanders, it's really difficult for her to believe that any politician is doing anything outside of their own interest. Just has that side, which I think also I'm sure informs my sister and I's political views as well. We're much more progressive and we're able to be a little bit more naive, and allow ourselves to believe that it's still possible for things to improve.

Brian Lehrer: Naive is an interesting choice of words there. Do you find yourself having to try to convince your mom that democratic socialism, US-style is not the same as or won't inevitably lead to communism USSR style that she experienced?

Hayk: I think honestly, the more we experience what's currently happening politically, the more we collectively as a family see what the massive benefits were of the system that we used to live in. It's very clear to us now that that's the way to move forward. Coming in here, we didn't expect to be missing the social and communal elements of the life that we had. Previously, we didn't have access to materials and food and things like that, but we had a very strong, tight-knit community. Moving to the US I think my 10-year-old brain at the time assumed we would have everything we had in Armenia plus, access to resources, et cetera. Then 30 years later, we're feeling like the communal aspect is really missing. We're trying now to get control back in our lives and to reshape things into our future that isn't dictated to us and try to figure out how to bring back some of those elements from our past life.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting based on how your family and world events intersect or interact. Hayk, thank you, and Jacob in Brooklyn, you're on w NYC. Hi, Jacob.

Jacob: Hello, Brian, how are you? I just want to start off by saying, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: No, you go ahead.

Jacob: All right then, I'm 27 years old, and I'm an American, of Yemeni descent. I'd like to say that there's a slight difference between my father and I. My father, he's conservative and I am conservative as well. That's where we I'd say meet eye to eye. Where are we different is where my father he's got to understand the Yemeni culture is patriarchal in its nature. You've got to understand I as a Muslim, that's completely different. The courts, I don't want your listeners to conflate Islam with patriarchy. What I'm trying to say is that I help my wife around the house, my father criticizes me for changing my son's diapers or helping my wife around with chores and cooking and stuff of that nature. I just want to say that I'm the type of Yemen that really is open-minded but at the same time, I am conservative. It's a good mixture, I think.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think there's any of this same generational split or change going on in Yemen itself with respect to gender roles, or is this largely a function of being in the US in your experience?

Jacob: I'd say to a certain extent, it's like a 50/50 divide. I know, our people back in Yemen, there are certain men that do help their wives around because you got to understand that as Muslims, we do follow our beloved Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. He helps his wives around the house, he would do chores. Like I told you earlier, I don't want your listeners to conflate patriarchy--

Brian Lehrer: Patriarchy and Islam and I get that and Jacob, we are out of time for the segment. Thank you so much for your call. Interesting how much gender roles came up in this call-in for immigrants or children of immigrants under 40. Tomorrow, part two in this segment with callers over 40.

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