The complicated relationship between poor, refugee fathers and their children

*note: a previous version of this was titled "The complicated relationship between poor, refugee fathers and their daughters" I have since changed this title from "daughters" to "children" in order to acknowledge the different experiences of children and their fathers that may parallel my experience.


Father’s Day is an excruciatingly difficult time for me.

For those who have had absent, nonexistent, or toxic parents/fathers in their life, I think we all know best what these days conjure up for us.

As the eldest daughter of Hmoob refugees, growing up poor, growing up as non-citizens, and not speaking English, my parents had to sacrifice a lot to give me the opportunity to be where I am today.

Unfortunately, the sacrifices that our parents make come at the cost of time with their children, showing them love and kindness, and raising them to be conscious of themselves as they venture into adulthood.

These lessons are lost and stripped away from children when their parents must adhere to the gruesome hours of factory work. When parents must learn how to navigate systems by keeping their head low, their voices quiet, and their children obedient.

These lessons of life are lost when parents come home and do not have the emotional or physical capacity to show care, love, and patience when they are exhausted.

My parents, and more specifically, my dad, has always chosen his work over his children. When I was a child, I used to be jealous of children whose parents would show up to school events and fully support and love what their children had to show them. I remember choir concerts where I walked home afterwards at night, wishing that my parents could come see and support me. I remember how painful it was to see that even when my mom attended my events, she was confused about what was going on, because she did not speak English. For an internalized child who has grown up surrounded by white people, what else could be expected, other than to hate her culture, her language, her skin color, and resent her parents?

My mom did the best she could. She is a powerhouse of a woman and is one of the strongest women I know. Her ferocity is not only contagious—it’s hereditary.

But regardless, I had to support myself and my brothers through my childhood. When Mother’s day and Father’s day rolls around, I always celebrate myself for raising my brothers.  I never asked to be a parent for my brothers, nor was I ever told what made my leadership/leading style right. I was always told what I did wrong by my parents and my relatives. I was responsible for their behaviors and their grades. Again, what else were my parents to do in a country whose education system they had never navigated? I was the only one who had the experience. I was the only one who had the answers. Anything short of that was a failure on my part.

I made it a priority to show up to my brothers’ concerts and events because I never wanted them to even question whether or not what they did was important. When I entered my college years, I still drove to see my brothers’ events. This past month, I drove with my brother to go see the university he would be attending this fall.

I have not been a perfect “parent” for my brothers. I have a page in my bulletjournal that lists all the topics I have yet to discuss with them. My brothers and I have come a long way despite the absence of our parents, especially our dad.

The absence of my dad was never questioned in my childhood. It was a given that he was the moneymaker in the family, therefore, his parental obligation finished there. The only times I remotely remember affection from my dad is in pictures of when I was a kid, in pigtails. I had very few pictures with my mom, but a multitude of pictures with my dad and me at the park. He used to take me to the park to feed bread to the ducks (please don’t do this it’s bad for them…I know better now). I think I noticed the change in my dad’s affections when he was laid off from the company he’d been working at for well over a decade. He’d had that job since I was born, and I remember that I wrote my first resume as a 12 or 13 year old to help my dad find a job. It was a dark time for my dad, and I remember being frustrated with him for consistently asking me to file his unemployment paperwork.

On the day of my graduation from my undergraduate degree, I told him months prior to take off of work the night before. I reminded him consistently. He ended up taking a shift the night prior and the morning of my graduation, he did not attend my graduation. The complicated feelings I had to grapple with were 1) that he was working to make money and 2) as the first and only daughter in our family to complete a bachelor’s degree AND commission into the military, I didn’t see how he couldn’t make my accomplishments a priority. I still grapple with these feelings to this day.

I resent my dad for a lot of reasons. He is an avid supporter of policies that directly go against the policies that allowed him into this country (he supports the deportation of immigrants and refugees, when he himself was a refugee after the Vietnam war). He is patriarchal in everything that he does (believes there is a difference between men’s work and women’s work), and I remember he said to me, straight in my fucking face that if any of his children were gay or trans, he would disown them rather than be shamed by our community. He fetishizes young women from Laos and Thailand, and especially women who adopt White beauty standards (blue eyes, fair skin, and “thick” in the right places).

My dad’s situation is complicated and I continue grappling with these complications. There is trauma that runs through his veins that he has never voiced. He is healing and these are things he cannot talk about, and chooses not to talk about. None of which gives him a pass to be a shitty piece of shit when it comes to the bullshit he supports about immigration and cisheteromisogyny.

What does it mean for us Hmoob daughters to love our parents when they do not extend the same to us? What does it mean when the Hmoob men/fathers in our life treat us like shit and we, as Hmoob womxn have to reason with it and use their trauma as an excuse?

I cried a lot while writing this piece. I’m still crying now. I’m writing this piece mostly for me, to reconcile with the complicated emotions I have towards my dad on this Father’s Day.

If I could, I would say to him today:

I forgive you for being the father that you are.

I will not resent any of the sacrifices you have made to keep food on the table, a roof over our heads, and electricity in our home. I will teach my children the same work ethic you have taught me. And I will also teach them everything that you failed to teach me. 

But I will not forgive you for showing your sons apathy when they beg for your love and attention. I will not forgive you for instigating conversations with me only for your own amusement. I will not forgive you for refusing to acknowledge when you are wrong, or when you are being lazy in your parenting tactics.I will not forgive you for not trying to search for the answers on how to be a better father, husband, role model.

I will not forgive you for bringing me into this world to do your parenting. I will not forgive you for bringing my youngest brother into this world when you were well aware of how hands off you would be with him. 

I am your daughter.

You are lucky to have a daughter like me.

My brothers are lucky to have me.

I am lucky to have me.

Happy Father’s day to me.

2022 Edit: 

- Many folks have approached me/commented on this article on social media platforms, and this blog to say: "You should be grateful" and to that, I say this: Nah.