My mom's been discovering RUclips more and more throughout the years. Not sure if she's discovered the comment section yet but really thankful she agreed to be interviewed for this project. I honestly had no idea she was a fan of Michael Jackson and watched The Brady Bunch growing up. There were other pieces of the interview that didn't make this final cut, but I'm glad I was able to preserve those moments for myself and future generations.
Phil's shirt saying, "did you eat yet" melted my heart...that is one of those 4 word phrases that can mean, 'I love you too' and say so much more. To anybody that needs to hear it, don't forget your coat.
It's really refreshing to see Wong Fu continue to serve the community in whatever way they can even in the midst of this chaos. Lots of love to each and everyone ❤️❤️
My parents are vietnamese boat people. My dad and my mom came when they were really young. My dad experienced a lot in refugee camps so he doesn't like to talk about much. My mom tells me the story about how she came to Canada often and each time she tells the story, she adds a little more information that she hasn't mentioned before. Last year I heard a bit more of the story and it was shocking to me because it wasn't just a child making the decision to jump on a boat in the middle of the night without telling her mother (something I don't think I can do myself) but the aftermath and hardship of being away from family, especially parents who would usually take care of everything. In general not being able to be a kid and have choices, something they always let me and my siblings have. That's what I learned to appreciate and am grateful 💕
I always think it's so important to talk to our elders. I also find it so important to preserve the language and pass it down, otherwise the stories will get lost like Wes' mother's Cantonese Chinese as less and less people speak Cantonese. I listened to the stories of my immigrant parents and know what true discrimination is. The language and culture barrier they were up against. These barriers continue to exist as long as we stay hypocritical and not stay objective when giving people a chance.
I hope you make a whole series out of this. Just these 2 stories were so amazing. I wanted even more. Well, and I also wanted to hug them, but boundaries. Ha. Thank you for this. As always, Wong Fu is making all the right videos with all the right tones. You will always be important/relevant... just like your elders are.
This is an absolutely beautiful project. The story about experiencing the sunny but cold day reminds me of a coworker from a prior job. He was friend Vietnam and he and several family members had arrived in Chicago. As they sat in the terminal they noticed the bright day outside and thought it had to be hot out there. A relative who had been in the US for years was with them and told them that, no, it was very cold outside. They had a hard time believing it until a staff member entered the terminal from the exterior door adjacent to the gate they were sitting near and they got a blast of the cold outside air.
Loved this!! I always tear up and get the sniffles when it comes to our elders. Even when I'm asking my grandparents basic questions about their past it's so hard to hold back tears. I'm so grateful for everything they sacrificed and experienced just to give their children/grandchildren opportunities here.
4:22 her words/the way she tells her stories make me feel the same way i feel when i watch a short directed by wes. somehow warm and sweet, filled with excitement and wonder and beauty and heart ;_;
I'm not crying. You're crying. Thank you so much for this time and sharing these moments from your family's lives with us. As a 1st Generation Vietnamese-American, having these conversations with my parents aren't always the easiest as they always bring up past emotions and memories that might have buried for a long time. It helps to share these times with one another. As they get older, we get older and life is short - we must treasure these moments shared with loved ones to celebrate their trials and tribulations so we can have a better life to not go through what they had to. Thank you for those who had to give up everything they knew to come over to foreign land to start new but build towards a future in the virtual unknown.
WongFu’s work is so under appreciated and deserves so much more attention. Their work and messages are always so important and untalked about please know your work is appreciated and important, thank you WongFu ily and will always be grateful for what you’ve done for our community and the representation you’ve given to us 💛
You can feel the strength and willpower deep down when the first generation immigrants are talking about their stories, all of them are the epitomes of the Americans Dream. They are not different than us, we are just living in different eras.
Love this! Love these stories. Thank you for sharing them. As a 1st generation African American, I hope this also helps to build solidarity between our communities.
My tears streamed over Wes's mom's description of her first impression of America when the plane was landing. She went to the US with hopes, curiosity and anticipation to survive, grow and settle down, and make the best of what she had. Our parents are all true fighters and were all young once -- with all the dreams in their mind, but limited by resources.
Automatically LOVED just by reading the title. This is so important. SO IMPORTANT* love our parents, grandparents and generations before. We are them and they are us.
When my parents first came to America from China, they didn't speak English. They still speak broken English today because they're in their 60s already. My dad gave up his entire life just to move to U.S. so I can have a better life and get good education. He was a lawyer and businessman in China that was super successful. Had he stayed and continued to pursue his own life, he would've been a billionaire by now because he was about to open his own hotel in the 90s with a friend. How he was raised, he was collecting and eating tree skins as a kid because there wasn't enough food for everyone. During the winter, he would curl up in a blanket and study and read books at any opportunity he got because there was no AC/heater. And he would spend every dime he had to buy books because he knew education was important. I know many of my friends and peers I meet along the way are all in the same boat too. It's also these kind of people: the dish washer in a restaurant, the person picking the fruits in 100+ degrees, the people that pick up our trashes everyday, etc., that I have the utmost respect for and honestly think they deserve so much more than all of us. Our parents never complain about their decisions. It only makes them wanting to work harder because of our success. It's the fact that they're always there to clean up after us when we got into trouble. To me, that's something so valuable that us immigrants can definitely all relate and take with us to move forward with. Trying to explain that to someone who never experienced any of that, they don't understand the pain and the struggles of us immigrants. They don't understand what coming to U.S. was like with no money in our pocket and knew nothing about the culture or the language.
I’ve been wanting to do this for years with my own grandparents because they’re one of the 100k people from a small town in China that escaped and set up a life in Caracas, Venezuela. I just wished there weren’t such a language barrier between us where I can ask them and understand what they’re saying. Seeing these stories make me want to make a real attempt at asking this time ❤️
wes's mom so cute! But yes, our parents often do not talk about their struggles but their voices can be heard by us spreading awareness. #standupwithasians
I am currently living in China. It is an honor that I get to be here. They have been so nice and open to sharing their culture with me. It has been amazing getting to experience living here! Especially hearing how the elders use to live and even my host mom. Before new China was made, life in China has changed so much.
Hearing Wes’ mom speak about her immigration story was touching for me because of the Canto-English and the fact that my mom loves the same musicals and is of a similar age. 我好想多謝 Wesley 的媽媽, 同我們講你的移民經驗！ ❤️
I'm not Asian but I'd love to help preserving your stories! I recommend books like They Called Us Enemy, Farewell Manzanar, the Making of Asian America, Little Manila is in the Heart, and Growing Up Brown.
This brought me to tears. I've been following you ever since your 1st video and it's been a joy watching your journey. Thank you so much for what you do for our community!
It was so nice hearing Wes's and Benson's mom talking about their experiences. It may because I also speak Cantonese but I just really felt emotional during Wes's mom's story.
So good and so touched to hear about the struggles Asian Americans’ immigrant parents faced. The struggles and sacrifices were very real, yet they were so strong to push those struggles aside, never talked much about it, and forged ahead to build the American dream.
Within my family it was all my dad's effort alone for his family and i can't imagine the immense pressure he had to deal with and it makes me treasure my chances even more
Love that you are doing this! Last year I started interviewing my mom on camera, asking questions about her life. I've learned so much about her from this process. I also started recording her as she goes through her old photo albums. More stories that otherwise would not have been heard are now preserved on video. Still have quite a few albums to go through. Only wish I had thought about doing this over a decade ago before my dad passed.
I did this project twice for school and it really opened my eyes on the sacrifices immigrant parents have do for their children... I hope my future kids learn how brave their grandparents are
I didn’t even know you guys were doing this but I had the talk with my grandpa too! It was incredible to hear his story and I felt more connected to my culture than ever. So much so that I started learning Tagalog so I can speak with him more! I’m so glad you guys are doing this and I’m thankful for what you do for our community. This is something everyone should do if they have the chance
So grateful for this video, saddened by the pain, and hopeful for the truth and wisdom elders can impact us with... especially elders in the APIA communities. As a child of generations of European immigrants and western worldview, I grew up racially and culturally white... with little reference for what honoring or even valuing my elders and ancestors looks like. I am learning from y'all in this moment. I know this video isn't about teaching me/white folks, but thank you for sharing your wisdom. I hope this campaign goes so well!
KUDOS for another GREAT SHARE and Video! SO true, and sadly some of us no longer have the elders to ask, and when younger, the language barriers hindered much conversation. I fell that I have lost roots somewhere, but even eldest relative says no village or history is left :( Oddly a Vanlife you tuber made a recent Video on Vancouver Island, and I started to realize Grandparents were there at one time and Mother was born on the island... All the BEST and Cheers! WELL DONE! :)
Really heartwarming to hear my familiar mother tongue - Cantonese - being spoken by Wesley's relative (grandmother?). Her style is more like that of Hongkongers, mixing English words into the conversation where convenient/appropriate...
What a wonderful loving idea to hear some experiences of our immigrant families. It's in the Asian culture to not speak up and not set boundaries, but eventually it needs to be done
I’d love to be able to record one of these videos before Christmas-would love some ideas on what kind of questions to ask! My parents escaped Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge, and it’s always been a touchy subject to bring up with them.
I actually had a similar idea back in 2019-2020. I told my fiance I wanted to record my grandma as... it's pretty close to her time. And I want to know her life story before I was born. 🙂
I would love to have the opportunity to hear the stories of the Elders with a bit less editorialization, whether that means less background music or having the audio available as an archive. This reminds me of the Folk Memory Documentary Project collective based in Biejing, that collects memories of The Great Famine from rural communities in China. Great work
My cousin just photo bombed a bunch of scanned pics received from another cousin on our WeChat. The pictures are of us when we were young with our elders who many have past away. We walked down memory lane and saddened that many more elders will soon leave us.
My mom's been discovering RUclips more and more throughout the years. Not sure if she's discovered the comment section yet but really thankful she agreed to be interviewed for this project. I honestly had no idea she was a fan of Michael Jackson and watched The Brady Bunch growing up. There were other pieces of the interview that didn't make this final cut, but I'm glad I was able to preserve those moments for myself and future generations.
If you have your own RUclips channel, it would be great to see the rest of the interview :)
Hi! Thanks for sharing. Where can we find the interview questions so that we can continue the conversation with our families?
Made me feel at home when hearing Wes' mom's story and she interchanged between English and Cantonese❤️
@Kailyn
Yea, Wes' Mom speaks like a Hong Konger - Cantolish.
We’re honored to be a part of helping to preserve and amplify these stories ❤️
Silence brand
Love hearing Wes' mom share her story. It's heart warming and heart breaking at the same time.
Phil's shirt saying, "did you eat yet" melted my heart...that is one of those 4 word phrases that can mean, 'I love you too' and say so much more. To anybody that needs to hear it, don't forget your coat.
It's really refreshing to see Wong Fu continue to serve the community in whatever way they can even in the midst of this chaos.
Lots of love to each and everyone ❤️❤️
My parents are vietnamese boat people. My dad and my mom came when they were really young. My dad experienced a lot in refugee camps so he doesn't like to talk about much. My mom tells me the story about how she came to Canada often and each time she tells the story, she adds a little more information that she hasn't mentioned before. Last year I heard a bit more of the story and it was shocking to me because it wasn't just a child making the decision to jump on a boat in the middle of the night without telling her mother (something I don't think I can do myself) but the aftermath and hardship of being away from family, especially parents who would usually take care of everything. In general not being able to be a kid and have choices, something they always let me and my siblings have. That's what I learned to appreciate and am grateful 💕
I always think it's so important to talk to our elders. I also find it so important to preserve the language and pass it down, otherwise the stories will get lost like Wes' mother's Cantonese Chinese as less and less people speak Cantonese. I listened to the stories of my immigrant parents and know what true discrimination is. The language and culture barrier they were up against. These barriers continue to exist as long as we stay hypocritical and not stay objective when giving people a chance.
Mother.
@@thewesleychan sorry edited
You guys made me teared up in a nostalgic way. I was reminded of my late grandparents who shared their stories so thank you for reminded me of that ❤️
it feels so special hearing people speak cantonese 🥺 especially as your first language
🥺
I love listening to Cantonese
I hope you make a whole series out of this. Just these 2 stories were so amazing. I wanted even more. Well, and I also wanted to hug them, but boundaries. Ha. Thank you for this. As always, Wong Fu is making all the right videos with all the right tones. You will always be important/relevant... just like your elders are.
This is such a beautiful video. Thank you for amplifying our elders voices 💗
This is an absolutely beautiful project. The story about experiencing the sunny but cold day reminds me of a coworker from a prior job. He was friend Vietnam and he and several family members had arrived in Chicago. As they sat in the terminal they noticed the bright day outside and thought it had to be hot out there. A relative who had been in the US for years was with them and told them that, no, it was very cold outside. They had a hard time believing it until a staff member entered the terminal from the exterior door adjacent to the gate they were sitting near and they got a blast of the cold outside air.
Loved this!! I always tear up and get the sniffles when it comes to our elders. Even when I'm asking my grandparents basic questions about their past it's so hard to hold back tears. I'm so grateful for everything they sacrificed and experienced just to give their children/grandchildren opportunities here.
I like listening to Wesely’s mom talking about her experience. Hearing her speak Cantonese is just nice.
4:22 her words/the way she tells her stories make me feel the same way i feel when i watch a short directed by wes. somehow warm and sweet, filled with excitement and wonder and beauty and heart ;_;
I'm not crying. You're crying.
Thank you so much for this time and sharing these moments from your family's lives with us.
As a 1st Generation Vietnamese-American, having these conversations with my parents aren't always the easiest as they always bring up past emotions and memories that might have buried for a long time. It helps to share these times with one another. As they get older, we get older and life is short - we must treasure these moments shared with loved ones to celebrate their trials and tribulations so we can have a better life to not go through what they had to.
Thank you for those who had to give up everything they knew to come over to foreign land to start new but build towards a future in the virtual unknown.
WongFu’s work is so under appreciated and deserves so much more attention. Their work and messages are always so important and untalked about please know your work is appreciated and important, thank you WongFu ily and will always be grateful for what you’ve done for our community and the representation you’ve given to us 💛
thank you so much wongfu, huge inspiration to the community.
Sir I am from India, from a Tamil culture and I am greatly appreciate your production doing such a beautiful thing in this pandemic world 🌎 thanks
You can feel the strength and willpower deep down when the first generation immigrants are talking about their stories, all of them are the epitomes of the Americans Dream. They are not different than us, we are just living in different eras.
Love this! Love these stories. Thank you for sharing them. As a 1st generation African American, I hope this also helps to build solidarity between our communities.
My tears streamed over Wes's mom's description of her first impression of America when the plane was landing. She went to the US with hopes, curiosity and anticipation to survive, grow and settle down, and make the best of what she had. Our parents are all true fighters and were all young once -- with all the dreams in their mind, but limited by resources.
Automatically LOVED just by reading the title. This is so important. SO IMPORTANT* love our parents, grandparents and generations before. We are them and they are us.
When my parents first came to America from China, they didn't speak English. They still speak broken English today because they're in their 60s already. My dad gave up his entire life just to move to U.S. so I can have a better life and get good education. He was a lawyer and businessman in China that was super successful. Had he stayed and continued to pursue his own life, he would've been a billionaire by now because he was about to open his own hotel in the 90s with a friend. How he was raised, he was collecting and eating tree skins as a kid because there wasn't enough food for everyone. During the winter, he would curl up in a blanket and study and read books at any opportunity he got because there was no AC/heater. And he would spend every dime he had to buy books because he knew education was important.
I know many of my friends and peers I meet along the way are all in the same boat too. It's also these kind of people: the dish washer in a restaurant, the person picking the fruits in 100+ degrees, the people that pick up our trashes everyday, etc., that I have the utmost respect for and honestly think they deserve so much more than all of us.
Our parents never complain about their decisions. It only makes them wanting to work harder because of our success. It's the fact that they're always there to clean up after us when we got into trouble. To me, that's something so valuable that us immigrants can definitely all relate and take with us to move forward with. Trying to explain that to someone who never experienced any of that, they don't understand the pain and the struggles of us immigrants. They don't understand what coming to U.S. was like with no money in our pocket and knew nothing about the culture or the language.
I’ve been wanting to do this for years with my own grandparents because they’re one of the 100k people from a small town in China that escaped and set up a life in Caracas, Venezuela. I just wished there weren’t such a language barrier between us where I can ask them and understand what they’re saying.
Seeing these stories make me want to make a real attempt at asking this time ❤️
wes's mom so cute! But yes, our parents often do not talk about their struggles but their voices can be heard by us spreading awareness. #standupwithasians
I am currently living in China. It is an honor that I get to be here. They have been so nice and open to sharing their culture with me. It has been amazing getting to experience living here! Especially hearing how the elders use to live and even my host mom. Before new China was made, life in China has changed so much.
Hearing Wes’ mom speak about her immigration story was touching for me because of the Canto-English and the fact that my mom loves the same musicals and is of a similar age.
我好想多謝 Wesley 的媽媽, 同我們講你的移民經驗！ ❤️
I'm not Asian but I'd love to help preserving your stories! I recommend books like They Called Us Enemy, Farewell Manzanar, the Making of Asian America, Little Manila is in the Heart, and Growing Up Brown.
Beautifulll💖💖💖, this is such a great idea, going to try this with my folks
This brought me to tears. I've been following you ever since your 1st video and it's been a joy watching your journey. Thank you so much for what you do for our community!
Such a beautiful video. Glad to hear about these experiences from both Wes and Bensons moms. Such strong and beautiful women 💕
It was so nice hearing Wes's and Benson's mom talking about their experiences. It may because I also speak Cantonese but I just really felt emotional during Wes's mom's story.
🖤
So good and so touched to hear about the struggles Asian Americans’ immigrant parents faced. The struggles and sacrifices were very real, yet they were so strong to push those struggles aside, never talked much about it, and forged ahead to build the American dream.
This is so sweet! Love hearing from both mothers!! I’m sure they are both proud of Wes and Benson ❤️
Thank you guys!
Thank you Wong Fu for this
huggggs it's never easy to uproot yourself and adapt to a whole new world. kudos to everyone who went through that, by choice or not.
That's really cool y'all sent out recording equipment to the fans to tell their stories, really cute of y'all 🙂
Within my family it was all my dad's effort alone for his family and i can't imagine the immense pressure he had to deal with and it makes me treasure my chances even more
Love that you are doing this! Last year I started interviewing my mom on camera, asking questions about her life. I've learned so much about her from this process. I also started recording her as she goes through her old photo albums. More stories that otherwise would not have been heard are now preserved on video. Still have quite a few albums to go through. Only wish I had thought about doing this over a decade ago before my dad passed.
I love this project and concept! I can't wait to hear more stories.
I did this project twice for school and it really opened my eyes on the sacrifices immigrant parents have do for their children... I hope my future kids learn how brave their grandparents are
Amazing video! thanks~ the two interviews were immensely meaningful and it's such an amazing opportunity to listen to their stories.
This is so important, thank you for doing this 💙
Amazing video and amazing concept Wong Fu. Great work as per usual
Thank you so much for doing this!!
We stayed quiet, we were taught to internalize everything to be peaceful but now we are finally speaking out and pushing to be heard. ❤️
WongFu, you're beautiful!
I just watched this with my mom, and she is in deep thought rn. Thank you so much for this
So important what you are doing for the Asian community, keep it going
Way to go, Wong Fu! I can relate. My parents came here for a better life, too. The challenges we face...........
I didn’t even know you guys were doing this but I had the talk with my grandpa too! It was incredible to hear his story and I felt more connected to my culture than ever. So much so that I started learning Tagalog so I can speak with him more!
I’m so glad you guys are doing this and I’m thankful for what you do for our community. This is something everyone should do if they have the chance
I LOVE this! Listening to these perspectives was so heart warming and important!
💙😭 Loving this and feeling gratitude for my mom’s sacrifice and determination 💪🏽
So grateful for this video, saddened by the pain, and hopeful for the truth and wisdom elders can impact us with... especially elders in the APIA communities. As a child of generations of European immigrants and western worldview, I grew up racially and culturally white... with little reference for what honoring or even valuing my elders and ancestors looks like. I am learning from y'all in this moment. I know this video isn't about teaching me/white folks, but thank you for sharing your wisdom. I hope this campaign goes so well!
What a beautiful thing y'all are doing! I wish both of my parents were still around so I could do this.
KUDOS for another GREAT SHARE and Video! SO true, and sadly some of us no longer have the elders to ask, and when younger, the language barriers hindered much conversation. I fell that I have lost roots somewhere, but even eldest relative says no village or history is left :( Oddly a Vanlife you tuber made a recent Video on Vancouver Island, and I started to realize Grandparents were there at one time and Mother was born on the island... All the BEST and Cheers! WELL DONE! :)
Really heartwarming to hear my familiar mother tongue - Cantonese - being spoken by Wesley's relative (grandmother?). Her style is more like that of Hongkongers, mixing English words into the conversation where convenient/appropriate...
Thanks. She’s my mother.
@@thewesleychan Much love to her!
thanks for sharing your families' stories with the rest of us!
This is so inspiring, thank you Wong Fu!
What a wonderful loving idea to hear some experiences of our immigrant families. It's in the Asian culture to not speak up and not set boundaries, but eventually it needs to be done
Thank you for sharing
This was so heartwarming, what incredible strength and resilience
I’m tearing
Love listening to Wes's Mom story.
It was a GREAT EFFORT TO LUSTEN TO!
Thank you for being a positive and strong voice for the Asian American Community! (I'm Asian too)
Thank you so much for this
I love this so much. I wish I had the chance when I had but I never got the chance 🥺 I hope many people can do something like this.
I love the interview with Wes's mom! Reminds me of my mom and popo 💕
Great idea Wong Fu
❤
Wil this be a series and could you post the questions please? I really love this!
Well done
I’d love to be able to record one of these videos before Christmas-would love some ideas on what kind of questions to ask! My parents escaped Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge, and it’s always been a touchy subject to bring up with them.
💛💛
This is awesome
I actually had a similar idea back in 2019-2020. I told my fiance I wanted to record my grandma as... it's pretty close to her time. And I want to know her life story before I was born. 🙂
Great stuff
I would love to have the opportunity to hear the stories of the Elders with a bit less editorialization, whether that means less background music or having the audio available as an archive. This reminds me of the Folk Memory Documentary Project collective based in Biejing, that collects memories of The Great Famine from rural communities in China. Great work
wes' mom can totally go into voice acting for cantonese cartoons!
Hope we can hear more from each mom. Maybe unedited versions of each one?
My cousin just photo bombed a bunch of scanned pics received from another cousin on our WeChat. The pictures are of us when we were young with our elders who many have past away. We walked down memory lane and saddened that many more elders will soon leave us.
this is great!
Wes and his mom are so cute i cant even :3
This was incredible! I wanted to hear so much more! Is there a place where I can find more of these to listen to?
Is there a part 2? Not sure if there are more interviews. The description box lists 4 people.
Where can we submit our elders stories for you guys?
Very compelling project! Where can I find more stories you collected?
Wes has a great family support.
Wow! Such a beautiful concept!
My parents never had a life so I can have mine.
🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Could you share the interview guide in the description box or a pinned comment. I think it would also help many others
5:00 can fully understand what she said without subtitles, btw i’m a taiwanese 🇹🇼
Omg Wes' mom 🥺 whys the video so short
Hi!!