HONOR THY PARENTS
Respect for the Elderly, and Ancient Imperative Among Asian-Pacific Families, Is Feeling the Strain of Modern Life in L.A.
Tom and Wendy Teng, who emigrated from Hong Kong and South Vietnam, lived in a modest, rented Rosemead home with sons Steve, 12, and Richard, 2. Teng drivs a tour bus for Asian visitors; his wife is a job counselor at the Chinatown Service Center. Their joint income obviously isn’t overwhelming.
Still, when it was time three years ago to decide whether to expand their household and bring from her native land Khank Tran, Wendy Teng’s 67-year-old widowed mother, there was little discussion.
“We were taught from when we were children that this is something that should be done, that we must take care of aging parents,” said Teng, whose oldest brother watches over his parents in Indonesia.
Throughout Asia and the Pacific Islands, respect for the elderly—what sociologists describe as “filial piety”—has been a cultural imperative to be revered and adhered to. But in Southern California, where Asian-Pacific peoples constitute a major and exploding part of the population, the deep-rooted value system is undergoing a modern test.
As they grow increasingly Westernized, Asian-Pacifics say they feel squeezed between the needs of their children and those of their parents. They are caught in an emotional tug between centuries of tradition and the pressures of the [modern world].
The problem of the elderly. The mere suggestion of that thought represents a sort of cultural revolution, experts say.
Though it is hard to generalize about Asian-Pacifics’ experiences, if for no other reason than that there are more than 20 of their cultures represented in Southern California, it is largely true that in their native lands, “There has always been strong emphasis on the extended family,” said Stanley Sue, a UCLA psychology professor and a Chinese-American.
“With the Chinese, for instance, the roots come from Confucian values many centuries old, whereby the elderly are not only given respect, but often reverence,” Sue said.
Many Asian families immigrate to this country intact, meaning they bring their elderly with them, said Louise Kamikawa, director of the Seattle-based National Pacific/Asian Resource Center on Aging.
“In most agrarian [agricultural] cultures, which is the case with many of the Asians, the families are accustomed to taking care of the elderly,” she said. “Then, all of them find themselves in a culture in which this isn’t always followed.”
In contrast to the West, where the emphasis is on the nuclear family—the husband, wife and children—many Asian cultures have traditions in which at least three generations of a family live together. This is true for Southern California’s major Asian-Pacific groups: the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos and Vietnamese.
Some Asian-Pacifics already have been rudely introduced to some American ways with the old.
Jose C. Cruz, an 82-year-old Philippines native, clearly remembers the discovery of the body of an elderly woman who had lived alone in the adjoining duplex in Pasadena.
“She had been dead there two or three days,” he said. “She had several children living elsewhere, but apparently no one had been around her. That’s the way it often is in the United States. When you become old, in many cases, you will be alone.”
Cruz, who came here six years ago is now part of the county’s estimated 350,000 Filipinos, said that not only were he and his late first wife rearing six children but they were responsible for four grandparents.
“There was no question about it: You were expected to care for the parents in your home until they died,” he said. “I had to sell real estate and life insurance on the side to make ends meet. But we had been trained that it was an obligation, so there was no surprise about it.”
“There is no such thing as nursing homes in the Philipines. Nor do the elderly live alone.”
The lonely lives some American seniors lead also shocked Quang Tran a 72-year-old widow who came to Los Angeles from Vietnam 13 years ago. “For a time, I lived in an apartment with some American elderly women,” she said through a translator. “I was surprised to find that some had nobody who wanted to care for them.”
Why? “For centuries, the Vietnamese have believed that a person’s highest loyalty was to his parents,” said an adviser to the Vietnamese Elderly People Assn., who asked that his name not be used.
The Vietnamese number an estimated more than 60,000 in Los Angeles County, and most of these first-generation immigrants were taught that loyalty to the old cam before even loyalty to the state or any religious group.
“In some cases,” the adviser said, “the law expected a son or daughter to leave his work to go home and care for his ailing or feeble parents.”
Those who grow old in Asian-Pacific cultures have, by custom, come to expect certain formalities to be followed.
“We believe that if you respect the elderly, you yourself will live longer,” said Trach Trinh 80, a widower who came to the United States in 1975 from South Vietnam and now lives with his granddaughter, her husband and their four children. “Respect for the elderly is taught in the schools.”
Such is that regard when shaking hands—as common a greeting for Vietnamese as it is for Americans—seniors first are bowed to, with the shake following only if offered by the elder, Trinh said through a translator.
His companion, the 55-year-old adviser to the Vietnamese association, sat at his side and said he notices that his children sometimes forget this custom.
Trinh mentioned another traditional practice he sees his great-grandchildren neglecting as they grow more Westernized: “When they leave for school, they rarely stop to bow or say ‘Goodby.” And they sometimes come home without saying ‘Hello.’”
In Vietnam, he said, there is a saying: “When you go, you have to tell. When you return, you have to report.”
Tran reported that she has noticed in Los Angeles a change in what she said was a common custom among older Vietnamese women: “Where I came from, the elderly women would take care of the little children. Here so many [youngsters] are sent to nursery schools.”
Still, some Asian-Pacific elderly still receive little marks of respect that their American-born counterparts rarely get to savor.
Chao Yu Hsu a 70-year-old who immigrated 47 years ago and is a part of the county’s 170,000 Chinese community, said he still enjoys a courtesy common at meal-time in Chinese families: “The most elderly person starts eating first.”
Other niceties? “On anyone’s birthday , and on New Year’s Day,” he said, “the old person is bowed to.”
By David Larsen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer