THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER13, 2021 29
SHOUTS & MURMURS
LUCI GUTIÉRREZ
A
fter working a hundred hours a
week on top of navigating a new
culture and country, immigrant parents
may not always have the time or the
energy to share Hallmark aphorisms.
But, if they love you, these are the ways
they’ll let you know.
Silence
A picture is worth a thousand words,
but silence from an immigrant parent
after you’ve completed a task is worth
a million. It means that you didn’t do
anything wrong—yet! Now go clean
the garage; someone is coming over for
lunch in sixteen weeks.
Fruit cut up and delivered
to you on a plate, unsolicited
The less necessary it is to cut up the
fruit, the deeper their love for you. If
they’re slicing bananas, you are the light
of their lives.
Lack of physical touch
Physical touch may be an “official love
language,” according to the Instagram
Explore page, but trying to hug your
stoic father at Patel Brothers is basically
unacceptable P.D.A. Danny Tanner “Full
House” hugs are science fiction.
Forcing you to do Kumon
homework for three hours
That’s called quality time, O.K.? Sure,
you’re not talking to each other, but
your parents are sitting nearby, reading
newspapers filled with misinformation
and glaring at you every time you get
up to pee, like they’re Amazon floor
managers. That’s what love is all about.
Doing things you didn’t ask them to do
Is your gas tank suddenly full? (With
gas from Costco, of course.) Are there
seventeen bags of Famous Amos choc-
olate-chip cookies (which you casually
mentioned you liked in 2006) in the
cupboard? Did your mom hand you
fifty dollars for a cup of coffee, to “cover
tax”? Did your parents angrily stuff
Vaseline, Ziploc bags, and dish sponges
into your purse? Accept these gestures,
whether you already have several tubs
of Vaseline or not. And don’t you dare
say thank you.
Bombarding your phone
An image of a f lower with “Good
morning” written on it in a serif font.
Memes about Jesus. Forwarded texts
on WhatsApp. Fifteen missed calls.
Consider each a reminder that you’re
in their thoughts. And when you do
finally answer the phone, only to sit in
silence for an hour while being berated
about not having kids yet, what they’re
trying to say is that you are their rea-
son for existing.
Sending Google alerts
about homicides in your area
“Your area” means anywhere within a
three-hundred-mile radius of you. Sim-
ilar to their asking for the exact time
you will be home, this will do abso-
lutely nothing to insure your safety, but
it will make them feel better.
Roundabout questions
Immigrant parents, incapable of ask-
ing “How are you?,” will instead ask
when you last had the oil changed in
your car, or if you mailed in your tax
return yet. Also: Have you eaten? Have
you been incorporating enough milk
into your diet? Whatever amount of
milk you’ve been drinking, it’s wrong.
If they really want you to open up, they’ll
put on a movie from the sixties and ex-
plain the plot in excruciating detail until
you interrupt them with an update on
your relationship status.
Killing mosquitoes
Who else would murder for you? And
who else would do it with a forty-two-
hundred-volt tennis racquet? You can
ask for no deeper love.
Arguing with you, then feeding you
It would be ideal if you were hungry
every fifteen minutes so that they could
feed you. And nothing makes people
hungrier than a shouting match about
politics.
Asking about a friend you haven’t thought
of since the Bush Administration
How’s Corinne doing? You have no
idea. They may not know the names
of any of your current friends or your
job title, but what their interest in
Corinne really indicates is that they
care about you. That’s right: it was never
about Corinne.
Going the extra eight thousand
miles for you
They left behind the only life they’d
ever known to move to a foreign place
called Paris, but in Ohio. They accept
their new reality of not following the
metric system and being served tea
without milk in it. They said goodbye
to their friends, family, and entire net-
work to adapt to a culture where they
must keep up with both the Kardashians
and the Geico cinematic universe. They
did all this just to give their kids the
opportunities they never had—to grow
up safely, go to a good school, and eat
funnel cake at Six Flags.
HOW IMMIGRANT
PARENTS SAY “I LOVE YOU”
BY MEGHANAINDURTI
