Courtesy of Chen Yan
- My immigrant parents struggled to afford New York City rent while I was growing up.While at Yale, I worked multiple jobs to save up money to help my parents out.When I graduated, I helped my parents buy their first home using the money I saved.
On an evening walk during my freshman year at Yale, I noticed a homeless man slipping in and out of consciousness at the corner of a street. His breathing was shallow, his lips tinged blue, and he didn't respond to a sternum rub I gave him. Trusting my instincts, I reached for the Narcan I always carried in my backpack.
Within minutes, the man regained consciousness. When I offered to call emergency services, he shook his head. "I'd just like someone to stay here with me," he said.
He told me about his estranged kids and wife, about trying to rebuild what war and circumstance had taken from him. Though his identity as a Black man and Afghanistan veteran with PTSD was worlds apart from mine, there was something painfully familiar in his voice — a weariness I recognized in my own parents, two immigrants who, until recently, had no house to call their own and spent years chasing the elusive promise of the American dream.
I recounted that interaction to my mother the next day. During our call, I made her a promise: I would take on jobs throughout college and save whatever I could to help buy her a house in New York.
It's been nearly three years since I made that pledge, and shortly after my graduation this past May, we moved into our first house in Staten Island.
As a child, the idea of a house felt abstract, almost indulgent
When I was growing up, we made do with small Brooklyn apartments, and those spaces held all the joy in the world — toys, cartoons, birthdays lit by grocery store candles.
As a teenager, that naivety turned into frustration. I visited friends' houses, gazed up at their chandeliers, and wished to have what they did.
In New York, where the affordable housing crisis is at an all-time high, I always hated seeing my parents breaking their backs working odd jobs to pay rent as they age.
To help afford the house, I worked alongside my college studies
In my first three years of college, including the summers, my total income was a little over $110,000. Since Yale fully covered my tuition, living expenses, and food, in addition to providing an annual stipend, I was able to dedicate a large portion of my income to my savings account, which I jointly held with my mother.
I had several streams of income while in college: shelving books and making copies of handouts for English professors, fixing printers, drafting op-eds, making videos for an edtech company, freelance tutoring and writing, and working on public health campaigns for the United Nations Foundation.
I spent a summer in D.C., where most of my paycheck went to rent in the Dupont Circle, and another at the Ford Foundation, navigating the world of philanthropy. Some internships paid the bills, others helped me imagine a future career, and one turned into a job.
Whenever I felt overwhelmed, I thought of my parents, of how each job, each late night, was moving us closer to our goals.
Seeing my parents in their home has made the hard work worth it
When we finally bought our dream house, I brushed my fingers against the freshly painted walls. I couldn't help but think that in two centuries, this house would belong to a different set of owners. There would be toddlers I'd never get the chance to meet, growing up tracing the grain of these wooden floors with their bare feet, and teenagers sneaking their boyfriends and girlfriends through the back door.
But for now, my family has a permanent home. It is comforting to know that my parents will have an enduring place for them to come home to as the demands of budding adulthood and attending medical school at Stanford University pull my attention away.
I didn't want my parents to constantly ask for permission to exist, to find themselves tossed around in a country where immigrants are often made to feel like tumbleweeds.
Right now, we are here. Mom is deciding where to frame a family portrait, and Dad is asleep in his room. I'm lacing my shoes, about to go on a run through my new neighborhood.
It is a perfect July evening. There are still pops of fireworks overhead, even though the fourth was days ago. I look up, and I tumble into a memory, back to that night in my first year of college when I sat with the man on the street. He told me that bright things like fireworks and fireflies, as beautiful as they are, remind him of Afghanistan. However, he said that if he got the chance to see his sons again, he would not hesitate to work through his fears.
He's a constant reminder to myself to meet people where they are, in my career and beyond. My parents may have more security now, but so many others are still waiting — at the payphone, for the other side to pick up, for a room, for a brief reprieve from the grind and grime of survival.
We are all trying to come home.
