How My Immigrant Parents Escaped Poverty (It Wasn’t Hard Work)

America Loves The Overnight Success

Why Hard Work Is Not the Answer

According to Thinking in Bets, we can’t know for sure what the best decisions are because we have imperfect and incomplete information. The best we can do in life is to make decisions that have a high probability of success.

My dad told me that he used to do accounting for starving artists. They would sell their guitar in order to make rent and when they came into money, they would buy it back. He warned me about this. I’m certainly not so artistic that I would have pursued a career in the arts. But Asian Americans always want their kids to be able to support themselves. There’s always a push towards “safe jobs.” They want their kids to struggle less than they did. They do this by ensuring that their kids know a trade that is marketable.

What Happens When You Don’t Learn Important Skills

In addition to learning a trade, my parents learned other useful skills – like English. In contrast, I met this woman in China who told me that she traveled to the country for months at a time every year for 10 years. Then she turns around to the DVD vendor and says in loud English “FIVE!” and spreads her hand open to indicate the same. This woman, who had spent months and months living in China, didn’t even know the Chinese word for “five.”

Meanwhile, when I was cleaning out my parents’ basement, I stumbled upon my dad’s old English textbook. It’s pretty cute. In the margins, he writes “Study!”

English is my parents’ third and fourth languages. My parents made a concerted effort to learn English. They were constantly practicing and, though their grammar isn’t perfect, their English is far better than the vast majority of immigrants their age. I even remember my dad’s first pun (“I find hostels to be quite hostile.”).

Skills Set You Up to Escape Poverty

I know people will say no one should need to learn English to live in America. I mean, you don’t have to but it’s going to be difficult for you, just like not knowing Chinese in China is difficult.

Granted, if you’re reading this in an English-speaking country, you probably already know the language. But there are other skills you can learn that will be helpful and make you more marketable in your career. If you don’t have a marketable skill (like accounting) and you don’t know the language, employers are more likely to take advantage of you and you won’t know how to get a better job. You don’t necessarily have to use your survival skills, but you’ll be glad to have them if you’re in a pinch.

Well, obviously my parents had to be thrifty. They’re immigrants. My parents drove their cars to the ground and kept the same furniture for decades. We rarely got gifts (you have everything you need! my mom said) and we drove up and down the east coast for vacations. Not spending all their money helped them to build wealth and allowed them to weather financial storms.

I don’t mean this to say that my parents thought things would be handed to them, but that they understood their own value and demanded nothing less. They hustled. And in my mind, they had a certain middle-class mindset – I call it entitlement.

My circle of friends includes a few people who grew up in the lower class. These people are generally better at everything than I was/am – there’s a reason they were able to climb social ranks after all. They’re super smart, with amazing willpower, talented, charismatic, good-looking. They basically rose through the ranks based on merit and not tricks. So I’ve noticed that they still have a tell-tale sign that they didn’t grow up middle-class.

My parents would never settle for less. They taught me to call up the bank to get my fees waived. They haggled. I remember a childhood of scolding them for being too aggressive. (“Guys, this isn’t China. Stop yelling.”) I’m a little more genteel than my parents, but the entitlement is straight up from watching their example. My parents weren’t necessarily persuasive, but they were persistent, and they believed in themselves and they believed that doors would open. This optimism transferred to me.

Studies show that people who grow up in lower income areas trust people less than people who grew up in more affluent ones. For my ex, B, he had seen his mom make do with a lemon of a car, because that’s the only kind of car they would offer to someone with bad credit. They lived in whatever apartment they could afford. B grew up thinking that you can’t ask for help, or, if you do, people won’t give it to you.

I remember I was traveling with B, and we were running very late at LAX. The check-in kiosk wasn’t working so we were waiting in a very long line to see an agent to get our boarding passes. The minutes were ticking by, and B had resigned himself to missing the flight. But not me.

A new attendant appeared behind the customer service desk, but she was clearly working on something besides assisting customers. I slipped under the velvet ropes, bypassing the line, and she quickly resolved the issue. We ran up the escalators only to be greeted by a long security line. I heard our names called on the intercom for last boarding call. I then asked every single person if they would let us cut in line or we would miss our flight. They all said yes. Then we ran through the terminal and caught our flight just before it left (gate attendants love telling you how close you are to missing a flight).

Following my example, on our flight, B asked the man sitting next to him if he would switch seats with me so we could sit together. He never would have thought to do that without following my example. For B, he would have just sucked up the missed flight or the mismatched seats as fate and paid for another ticket. And when you’re not advocating for yourself, you stand to lose a lot.

I assume people are willing to help, and that’s something I learned from my parents.

I think how I act is very normal for a middle-class person. Lower-class people never expect anything good and upper-class people don’t need to haggle. But the middle-class, we are all about that hustle. And the more you ask, the more you get. Sure, you get turned down, but people are ultimately willing to help others out. And the middle class requires some help from others – maybe less than the poor, but definitely more than the rich. The ability to ask for more is a key component in moving up, in my opinion.

Hustling saves money but it also gives you a certain bit of confidence. I don’t believe in “The Secret” but I do believe that optimism can lead to good results. If you believe something good might happen, you’re more likely to try new things, which is more likely to get you somewhere good than sitting on your butt. That optimism is very middle-class, very American.

My parents were unafraid of switching jobs when it suited their needs. My mother actually moved to Virginia by herself when I was 9 to follow a new job. She rented a room and visited us on the weekends, while my dad took care of us in New Jersey. (It was around this time that I learned my dad was actually a very good cook, a secret he had been nursing for years).

My parents uprooted their kids from New Jersey to Virginia because of their jobs. Now I know some parents would judge them harshly for this. What about the children?! For me, it was rough changing schools but it was ultimately one of the best things that happened to me. The kids from my small hometown in New Jersey would hang out at the local grocery store parking lot for fun. Northern Virginia, on the other hand, has some of the best public schools in the country. Instead of parking lot friends, my peers are teachers, doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Sometimes you have to move to get a better job and kids are pretty resilient.

Personally, I think this was pretty badass all around. When I look at my parents’ careers, my dad always took the route that would make it easier for my mom to stay at her job. We moved houses so she could be closer to work, even though it made his commute longer. My parents were long-distance for a year and we ultimately moved to Virginia because of my mom’s job. My dad has never ever mentioned this; it’s just something I’ve noted from looking back. I don’t think he thinks it’s notable. But I do.

What Happens When Your Parents Are Equals

This sounds like a small thing, but my dad was not a complete obstacle to my mother’s career. I have seen the reverse pretty frequently, even in subtle ways. A lot of men will block their wives from advancing in their careers, even when it  harms them in the process. Other men do little to support their wives’ careers, particularly when such support is to their own detriment, and if the wife is not earning as much.

Similar to my parents’ story, my very favorite political story (and this is a category without a lot of contenders) is a weird and controversial one. It’s about Ted Cruz buying 100 cans of soup. It didn’t resonate with most people because most people dislike Ted Cruz. Still, it touched my heart. I know so many hetero couples where, even though the woman is poised for an excellent career, the man still expects her to have domestic duties. This story was that rare opposite. It was Cruz making a gesture that he expected his wife to pursue her own career and that he was perfectly happy to take care of himself. (Also, I’m impressed with how spare his life is eating canned soup every day. PF blogger in the making right there!).

My mom is an all-around superhuman. I mean, she followed her career. She worked full-time and cooked us dinner from scratch every night, which we ate sometimes as late as 9pm. This is not to mention that she moved across the world to a country where she had no connections, little money, and didn’t speak the language. (Same for my dad). So yeah, my mom is amazing. But my dad played a significant role in helping my mom’s career, something I think is notable and rare. Having two income earners really helped their/our financial stability.

My parents’ route is not the only way to success. Obviously a lot of immigrants start businesses (i.e. they take riskier routes instead of making safe bets). This is just my parents’ story. Of course there’s a fair amount of luck involved. My parents are still married. None of their kids had health problems. They didn’t get sick or disabled. They weren’t unemployed for long stints.

But the point I’m trying to make is, it’s not about hard work. My parents worked hard, but they focused on the right skills, rather than on working round the clock.

Do I feel bad that other people work harder than me and get paid less? No, it makes me feel good because it means none of us have to kill ourselves to get ahead. You need results, not exhaustion. Work smarter, not harder. Be united. Stay optimistic. And hey, always remember to ask for more.