#3 White Picket Fences

It has always been awkward for me to identify what social or economic class my family and I belong to. Most of my life I’ve lived in an affluent part of the Bay Area and for nine years of my childhood I attended private school.

Although I consider my parents to have achieved the American Dream, I know that it has not been without struggle and hard work to get through the obstacles they've had to (and the obstacles they face on a daily basis). On the surface level many people would consider me the sit at the higher end of upper- middle class, but I’ve never felt comfortable with that label. Even though I lived around and went to school with people of wealth I never considered myself one of them. My parents do well enough for themselves that they have the luxury of being able to dine at nice places, go to events, and splurge here or there, but because of their immigrant background, they have never been ones to spend frivolously.

My parents are nail technicians for a living. Nail technician, which sounds really nice, is not a phrase I grew up with either. I typically heard manicurists, which is also a stereotype that comes with being Vietnamese. Growing up, I endured teasing about what my parents do for a living. Once I got to high school, a classmate jokingly asked me if my parents painted nailed after she learned I'm Vietnamese. Because of the high school I went to and the district it is in, she thought it was unlikely that anyone living in that area are manicurists. I did not go to a very diverse school from kindergarten until eighth grade, the majority of the students were White and upper-middle class. Although my high school was more ethnically and racially diverse, it was not diverse in class. My parents are immigrants from Vietnam who came to the United States as young adults with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Now they are business owners and do very well for themselves, but have to work long hours servicing clients six days a week while the parents of my peers through grade school and high school have salaried jobs in offices with big titles. The reason my parents are able to live in Walnut Creek and to have sent me to private school from kindergarten until eighth grade is because we lived a very frugal lifestyle and the private school offered my parents an adjusted price on my tuition. While my friends’ parents drove expensive cars like BMW, Cadillac, Range Rover, etc. (you get the idea), my dad has owned the same Toyota minivan for twenty two years now.

I remember being embarrassed when I was younger that the doors on the car weren’t even electronic and didn’t open automatically (can we talk about cloth interior too? ugh). When we went on class field trips and parents were asked to volunteer as drivers/ chaperones, it was easy for most parents to take a day off of work. Because my parents are the only two who work at their nail shop, it was an extra effort for them to schedule clients around so one of them could volunteer. 

When I went on to high school, I came to realize that there is also a deeper level of difference between myself most of the others: our values are not the same. When I turned fifteen I started working as a hostess at a diner. My parents never pressured me to get a job and it was never asked of me to help out financially, but financial independence and hard work are very important to me because of the work ethic and frugality I saw in my parents. We could afford nice things, but chose to save money instead (please reference Aly Wong joke below about Asian spending habits).

Many of my peers in high school did not have an issue spending their parents’ money on clothes and other things. They all had iPhones when it became popular and got new cars when we started driving. I didn’t get an iPhone until the fifth generation and I drove my parents’ 2003 Lexus, which until that point had been their Sunday driver. Money, class, and privilege don't just mean nice things though. Our experiences are different and have shaped us differently. The other students I went to school with did not all have jobs when they turned fifteen and many even went their whole high school career without one. Even now, some of my closest friends have not worked in service or retail a day in their life, or have the privilege of working retail for one summer just to know what it is like, but they have been able to obtain salaried jobs right out of college. I have yet to land a paying internship, but have been working for seven years (anyone trying to help a girl out?). But my friends with class privilege aren't all White- they're Indian, Chinese, Korean. Their parents are immigrants too, but the difference is that their families were of a higher class before they came to America, unlike mine. I think it's really important to point out that race is not an indicator of class and class is not an indicator of race. It irks me to no end when people cannot separate the two.


Even though I don't completely identify with the upper-middle class it doesn't negate that economically, I am a part of it. I am also blessed enough to be in a very odd circumstance. After I was born, one of my parents' close clients, Esther, offered to nanny me while they looked for a day care or a professional. Esther and her husband Jim were recently retired and decided they wanted help watch me while my parents were working and as time went on, they became like grandparents to me. I want to point out that Esther is Mexican and Jim is White, and both came from working class families. Esther is an immigrant from Mexico, and Jim grew up as a Navy brat. I would consider Esther and Jim to be upper class (not like snobby upper echelon upper- class, but definitely more money than middle-upper class (Jim retired from being the president and CEO of PG&E, Esther was a psychologist)). Through them, I have had the privilege of being enrolled in golf and tennis lessons at the country club Jim and Esther are a members of, traveling to Europe, seeing theatre and broadway shows, and many other things that I feel uncomfortable talking about because I don't want to come off as bragging.*

I guess that I've never really felt like I've belonged to any class. I know that my parents have never really felt comfortable identifying as upper-middle class either. Many of their Vietnamese friends live in majority Asian communities in San Jose or Milpitas and might be considered working class. My parents feel uncomfortable showing off their wealth, so they don't wear anything that especially signifies their status. The neighborhood where I spent most of my life living is relatively diverse, but White European and Caucasian people are still in the majority. My parents have also become close friends with some of their clients, most of whom have white collar jobs and middle-upper class or upper class. But because they are still service workers for their clients, they make an effort to not play down their wealth so that they are still perceived as slightly less than. It's interesting to see how my family enjoys and dislikes certain parts of each lifestyle and live an ideal hybrid version.


*Note: I think I dislike being associated with the upper-middle class because of the stereotypes and certain stigmas that come with that. Often times "rich people" are labeled as snobby, entitled, not wanting to do difficult work. I'm proud of my work ethic because I strive to be the best product of my parents' hard work (wow that sounds so Asian, fuck (but that's the way it should be (shoutout to all the first gens out there making their families proud (or trying to anyway))).