This week has been filled with sickness and research……rinse and repeat. Creating a research paper sounds simple enough, however sometimes it is a very daunting task. Locating the specific information for my Annotated Bibliography proved to be a challenging process at times. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find sources, it was more about the best sources to choose.

My type A personality causes me to be very critical at times. I have to remind myself that creating this research project is a process that can  and would take time and be ever evolving. My nature is to create this perfect plan and implement  it flawlessly in no time. Well, that is clearly not the way it is going to go. I know what my topic is (immigration experiences) and now I have to find the stories to support it. What is the point that I am trying to make with my project? Just how will it all go together? This is the tricky part of the process. What I think it will be today is most likely not what the end project will be.

On a good note, I have really enjoyed doing the research. I found it amazing to learn so many historical facts and trivia that I had forgotten along the way. Revisiting this bit of history has allowed me to see it in a new light. There is a distinct difference in perception from a grade school student as opposed to an adult. History was never my favorite subject, in fact I thought it was very boring and stodgy. Luckily I no longer feel this way and can even say I enjoy it.

The one Ah Ha moment I had was when I was pondering what my next step would be. It hit me like a brick to the head, I have been doing research on immigration from the first class. All of our seminar books have been about Asian Americans (thus far) and their stories of immigration and adjustment in the United States. Though these books are fiction there may have been very similar situations that actually occurred. This helps me to have perspective and perhaps a bit more empathy.

I have found many similar experiences to what my family endured when they came to the United States. It was hard not to put my family members in the various roles of the fictional characters in the books, especially the last book “Forgotten Country“. I instantly cast my Aunt in Jannie’s role, my father into Hannah’s, and my Grandmother and Grandfather into the parents. My grandfather had so many similarities to the father. He brought his love of gardening and seeking the rewards of his bounty from his homeland. He had the best garden I have ever seen. I still have plants (they were his starts) that come back every  year. My grandmother assumed the appropriate role as the matriarch. She could be classified as a bit cold by others, but never to me. She was my world. Sadly she passed when I was 8. My grandfather died of cancer in an almost identical fashion as the book depicts. The only twist in my family’s book was the reversal of roles between my aunt and father as they aged. I have to say that this gives me a sense of perspective and a deep connection to this book.

The many experiences that I have been able to examine have many things in common that provide a form of a bond between immigrants. It is not something that everyone can experience, especially not during the times of war and escape. We live in very different times and circumstances. This project has made me hungry for more information and thankful that myself and my children have not had to relive some of the terrible circumstances that my father, aunt and my grandparents did.