Adopt/Adapt/Adept (7.2.25)
Red, white & blues.
Friday is Independence Day. It has been 25 years since Florence and I chose to leave Singapore to make the United States our home away from home. After graduating from college, we found work here, made friends here, started our family here, bought a house here, raised our children here, and built our lives here.
Recently, we visited the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. As my LinkedIn followers know, our son Ben accepted an offer to intern at an aerospace & defense company based there, and we decided to extend a trip to drop him off into an ersatz family vacation. We hadn’t been there for so many years – well over a decade – that simply preparing for the trip prompted some contemplation about how so much had changed, in so many ways, since then.
On our last trip, in 2014, Ben was eleven and Zach was eight. They were still in grade school and had not yet started the competitive ramp-up that would define so much of their teenage years. That time would rain enormous pressure on them, brought on by peers, parents and self. Some of it was cultural; our household is no stranger to the Asian preoccupation with academic excellence (though we have learned to temper it relative to earlier generations). But success was not an end in itself: our primary motivation was to move out of schools where out-of-the-box thinking was not encouraged, where it was acceptable for Asian kids or studious kids to be bullied for being different, and where one’s horizons could only be stretched as wide as a union contract would allow. But even better schools could not rescue them from the pandemic, remote learning and the exaggerative effects of social media. As immigrant Gen X parents, none of the lessons from our own childhood schooling in Singapore mapped. Figuring it all out ourselves was difficult. We often wondered, in moving to America, whether we had inadvertently disadvantaged our kids by exposing them to a system we had no clue how to navigate.
The nation also went through a difficult time during this period: from Obama to Trump, then Biden and back to Trump again. It seemed as if the country’s guts were turned inside out as people across the nation lined up on one side or the other of seemingly every issue: China & tariffs, Mexico & immigration, Russia & election interference, Europe & Ukraine, COVID & vaccines, women’s rights & parent’s rights & gay rights & transgender rights, affirmative action & DEI, George Floyd & BLM & police & guns, freedom of speech & disinformation, asylum & deportation, Israel & Palestine, carbon & AI, and the list goes on. Somehow, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter/X joined forces to give us incredibly strong feelings about topics most of us would be challenged to write a competent high school paper about – much less cogently lay out well-considered arguments for both sides.
As an immigrant, I am not eligible to vote. As a close follower of politics, this presented a personal dilemma. I struggled not only with whether it was worth forming an opinion which could never be expressed at the polls, but also with whether my opinion would only be valued by those who agreed with me – by those whose echo chamber I reinforced. If so, did the process of studying an issue enough to form a reasoned point of view alienate me from half the population of my adopted country? Is social divorce the unavoidable end-point of intellectual engagement? What about Lincoln, and the house divided?
All this made me curious about the vibe in D.C. I wasn’t sure what to expect, visiting the hotbed of political consternation, where ostracizing others seems to be preferable to constructive disagreement. As we walked past the White House, the Capitol or the monuments on our way to this museum or that lunch spot, we made friendly banter with workers, met other tourists and chatted with service staff. Most were lovely. Even the small groups protesting outside the White House were civil and muted. D.C. at this pedestrian level feels tranquil and businesslike – not what one would expect watching cable news.
For me, the trip was also a sentimental journey. I had spent nearly four formative years in Bethesda, a suburb outside D.C. Returning with adult children was like taking a trip back in time. We made plans to visit the Smithsonian, which I loved going to as a child. My dad would sometimes take me there on weekends to reduce the load on my mom, who had her hands full with my infant younger brother. The Air and Space Museum was a favorite. I remember watching the launch of the space shuttle Columbia TV in 1981; seeing it land sparked dreams of one day visiting space and spawned my love of science fiction novels and movies. The Natural History museum exposed me to the towering scale and reality of dinosaurs in a way my peers in tropical Singapore had never experienced. Somehow, my dad and I always ended up in the museum bookshop, and occasionally I would return home with a book about space, or science, or dinosaurs.
Naturally, I would grow up reading Michael Crichton novels through my teens, about scientists combating an alien virus in The Andromeda Strain or breeding the bioengineered velociraptors of Jurassic Park. For all her struggles – and she has many – America has always been, and I believe still is, a place that encourages us to imagine, to fantasize, to dream. It seems to me that sometimes, the many political issues Americans fight over can be distilled down to a fear that our fairy dust is in increasingly short supply. But if more of us believed anything were possible, would we not fight less, and dream more? Should our energies not be directed at making this so?
It’s easy to forget the small ways that America makes it possible to do what was once impossible. Our trip to D.C. was a short one, and so I did not have time to visit the neighborhood where I grew up. Instead, I looked up my childhood home on Google Maps. The tree in the front yard which caught my kite one summer still stood tall; from the outside I could visualize the steps down to the den where I recreated Super Bowl winning catches with my Nerf football; where my parents would play ABBA and Bee Gees records during parties. I remembered bringing home my first puppy, Sniffy, a Lhasa, and the kitchen where we cooked live lobster, a treat which a family friend fetched from New England. Using Streets, I replicated my walk to elementary school. I paused for a moment at the crossing where the older boy who lived in the house at the corner told me my first (very mild) dirty joke; I virtually sauntered to my best friend Shaminder’s house, where I would camp out all Saturday playing games on the Atari. The whole experience cost me nothing, neither a gallon of gas nor precious family capital. Not quite the same as the real thing, but the memories were real, and I was grateful for it. But is that yet another piece of the puzzle? Nowadays, gratitude is a forgotten virtue. I don’t think there has ever been a time in history when so many people were so unhappy despite having so much. Is this what it means to be a modern American – to suffer the misery of abundance?
America isn’t the only place that has made me who I am. I was born in India; I met my wife in Singapore; I accepted Jesus as my savior in the U.K.; I have close family in Australia. But in my own way, I have adopted America, just as, in its own way, America has adopted me. Life in America is not exactly easy, but it has, I think, been worth the effort because, in most of the ways that matter, it is a privilege to live a country that so prizes freedom that it has never stopped asking itself hard questions about what it truly means to be free.
Which brings me back to the topic of Independence Day.
I don’t know if our first three Presidents: Washington, Adams or Jefferson, ever even saw a Chinese in their lifetime. They would probably have been surprised to hear fluent English escape my lips. George might be astonished to know that I, like him, often quote from the Bible; John shocked that, after his manner, I am a Harvard-educated lawyer; Thomas perplexed that a yellow-skin such as I would be so preoccupied with using technology to improve society, just as he was. But I am certain that each of them would be gratified to know that I have found the means to make a life in the country they so loved, that I am not white but also not enslaved, that not only do I know how to write, but more importantly, that I can write freely.
I would show them the thousands of thoughts and hundreds of essays tucked away inside my “glowing metal journal”. They might inquire if it hails from Scotland, this “McBook”? Surely, they would be dumbfounded that I am at complete liberty to publish and distribute any of my ideas, not only uncensored but also at virtually no cost. Guided only by my conscience, and constrained only by the range of my vocabulary and the limits of my intellect, any essay I choose to publish is available to any person who is inclined to lend me attention, including, at this very moment, you. No printing press, ink, or paper is required. It quite literally travels invisibly, over hundreds or thousands of miles, through the air, into your very hands. To them, it would be the work of fairy dust.
Yes, Americans have lived through some hard years recently. The country is divided and our institutions are flawed. But we still experience remarkable freedoms, make remarkable inventions, and enjoy the rich fruit of that most remarkable, and American, of aspirations: to change the world by our willingness to dream. That ethos is what I sought in coming here those many years ago, and it is still alive today.
Happy Birthday America. Thank you for welcoming me as you have.
With grace and peace,
J
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Oh, what a beautiful essay. Incredibly moving. God bless you and your family.
Dear J,
Thank you for another moving and deeply thoughtful reflection. I’m struck by how many common threads run through our stories, despite the different paths we’ve taken.
I too was born abroad, in Brazil, and immigrated to the United States over 30 years ago, drawn by the promise of the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” Like you, I planted new roots here: I graduated, married, gave birth to and raised my children on American soil, believing that in this land, they could grow up free, brave, and full of possibility.
Reading about your return to D.C. brought back waves of memory for me. I lived in Gaithersburg, just outside Bethesda, and the Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum were my favorite places too. As a child, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut, and in those museums, the impossible seemed just a little closer. More recently, I was in Washington again. This time with the California Delegation for the Federal Bar Association’s Capitol Hill Day, meeting with senators and representatives to raise important legal and social issues. What a journey it has been.
Your piece reminded me of what brought me to this country to begin with: the American ethos that here, dreams can come true. And in so many ways, they have. Though I may not have made it to space, I found my calling, my family, and a sense of purpose in this country I now call home.
As someone who became a U.S. citizen two decades ago, I feel both pride and heartache. I love this country deeply for its ideals, its diversity, its resilience. But like you, I feel the strain of division, of polarization, of growing disconnection. As Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And perhaps the first house we must tend to is the one within.
As Jesus also said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). If we are divided within ourselves, how can we expect harmony in the world around us? Your writing invites the deeper question: how can we come to embody faith, unity, and hope, not just as ideals, but as lived realities?
That is the call I hear in your writing, and it resonates deeply with me. Not just to believe in America’s promise, but to be that promise for ourselves, for our children, for one another. May we each walk our path with courage and clarity, not in isolation or superiority, but as lights in a world that desperately needs hope. May we live out the very values we wish to see more of in this world: freedom, imagination, compassion, and unity.
Thank you again for sharing your journey. It reminded me not only of where I’ve come from—but of why I’m here.
With much gratitude and respect, wishing you and your family a very happy 4th of July weekend!