I was 12 when I saw palm trees for the first time. I had never traveled beyond the East Coast before; my parents preferred road trips to vacations. They had forged a new home on Staten Island for 15 years before going back to their country – one they had seen in flames, in turmoil, and in poverty throughout their childhoods.
My childhood memories of Sri Lanka are different from theirs. When I went for the first time, in 2015, street vendors sold exotic fruits that were too expensive for us to buy back home. Three-wheeled, open-air tuk tuks swerved through traffic as if in an amusement park. We woke up to the sun beaming in through open windows. We stayed mere blocks from our entire extended family.
My sister and I sobbed on the flight home, asking our parents why they left in the first place. For a better life, they replied. But at home, we lived paycheck to paycheck and had one cousin within reach, too old for us to relate to.
My family in Sri Lanka called me patiya, or baby. They pampered me and pointed out every quirk of life in the homeland that they were sure I had never seen before. My grandma could catch a fly with her hand in one fell swoop. Every meal was made from scratch, accompanied by a ripe coconut and a straw. The paddy field in my aunt’s backyard had fish, turtles, and butterflies waiting to be found.
I was almost 20 when I visited Sri Lanka again. I had never traveled without my parents before. My teen years had passed, and our first “sister’s trip” would prove that we were mature and responsible adults. The flora and fauna and the buzzing streets were all the same. The air felt thicker though, and the street sellers were pushing their products harder than before.
Sri Lanka began experiencing one of its worst economic and political collapses in 2019, in part due to the Civil War that my parents had fled in 2000. There was no fuel, which meant no travel and no stoves.
I noticed the small burdens that characterize everyday life in Sri Lanka. With no escape from the smoldering heat, beads of sweat constantly rolled down our bodies. Inflation kept the same dishes on the table all week. Flies buzzed incessantly and mosquito bites never waned.
These were no longer temporary inconveniences for us to endure on summer vacation. They were the conditions of life for my family in Sri Lanka – all they knew and all they would ever know. The conditions that my parents thought I would be better off not knowing.
My parents grew up poor. My dad started working at 16 to supplement my grandfather’s income as a tailor. My mom did the same. My grandmother’s brothers didn’t let her work, though she would have become a secretary if it had been up to her. Most women did housework all day, and when their husbands, fathers, or brothers got home, they had one job: to serve.
They still are in the working class. My dad jumped from restaurant to restaurant before becoming a school bus driver, and my mom worked at Dunkin’ Donuts for a decade before becoming a daycare assistant. They’ve spent their lives working.
In Sri Lanka, they now call me loku duwa, or big daughter. That’s also what my grandma calls my mom. Nostalgia glimmered in their eyes upon seeing me, the resemblance much clearer in person than over Facebook. It wasn’t just that I had her eyes or her nose anymore. I look just like her.
This year, my sister and I practically skipped onto the plane home. Not because we enjoyed the 18-hour flight, but because we missed our “better lives.” Lives that weren’t dictated by the men in them. Where we had a chance of social mobility and making it out of the house.
We understood why our parents had left everything they knew of the world behind, and worked so hard in America for a better life. Not for them, but for us.