Love Languages, Immigrant Style

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, why don’t we explore the way “love” shows up in our families and communities?

In case you’re not familiar with the Five Love Languages, here’s a quick primer.

For the record, I show love with acts of service and giving gifts. Not as good with words of affirmation and physical touch (except for with my kid), and am not sure how unusual that is in the world of immigrant daughters. This led me to thinking about the ways love is expressed by immigrant parents. 

Presenting, the Five Immigrant Love Languages

1. Setting an unrealistic standard – don’t think that’s love? I beg to differ. It’s a way of saying, I know what you’re capable of, I believe in you. But in immigrant speak, that translates to: “You can come in at the top of your class while holding down a job and helping make dinner every night!”  “Look at what’s her name’s daughter – how she goes to college and also comes home and shovels snow every time there’s a storm.”  

2. Reminding you of the sacrifices they made for you – Again, not an obvious love language unless you dig deeper and translate “We came to this country so you could have a better life” to “I want the best for you because you’re amazing and deserve it.” 

3. Asking for tech support – I see this as showing vulnerability, expressing their confidence in our ability to figure out anything. Of course, sharing passwords is the ultimate immigrant way of hustling and well, resilience? 

4. Food, food, and more food – Whether its providing cut fruit, or sending you home with Tupperware (or repurposed) containers or showing up with a pantry full of spices (because of course, you the American child, can’t possibly have the right spices), food is the universal immigrant love language, no?

5. Making you a display object – All those aunties to meet, events to attend, as the sidekick. The activities that annoy(ed) us because they were really to show us off when we’d come home to spend time with family or we had school work or jobs to do. But “dress up and come with me” is also a way of saying, “you’re the realization of my hopes and dreams, and damn right, I’m going to show you off.”

I know these ways of expressing love have led so many of us to therapy, and I don’t mean to make light of the trauma caused by these well-intentioned but sometimes unproductive behaviors. Just know that we’re in this together, healing and learning, and sometimes laughing, sometimes crying. 

With love,
Sayu