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Holding space for the stories that built us and the voices that move us forward.
"They just wanted us to have the choice. To be able to dream, to try something because it's hard, not because we have to survive. I think that was their American Dream."
Bianca remembers standing at the airport window, forehead pressed against the glass, watching her parents walk away. She was just a child—maybe four—but the moment stuck. “We were screaming and crying,” she said. “We didn’t understand what was happening, just that they were going somewhere we couldn’t go.”
Their parents had left Indonesia first, hoping to set down roots before bringing the kids over.
What led their parents to make such a difficult choice was both personal and political. Indonesia in the ’90s was dealing with instability—riots, fallout from decades of dictatorship, and a deep sense of uncertainty. Their mother had a successful business, their father had work, but the dream of education and stability for their children pulled harder. “It was a huge risk,” Bianca said. “They didn’t speak English. They left behind everything—jobs, home, comfort—all based on the hope that life would be better for us here.”
“I remember seeing Dad again for the first time in over a year and a half,” Bianca said. “And it wasn’t this huge emotional reunion. It was more like… oh, there you are.” The realization that everything was different came slowly—at school, in the grocery store, when they noticed how different everything looked and felt. “It was like being in a different world, but trying to act like it was normal,” Bella said.
For Beverly, the youngest, was born in the US, therefore her experience of immigration was secondhand but no less impactful. What she remembers most are early mornings in the car, bundled up in the dark, on the way to immigration court. “I always had to sit separately,” she said. “My family would be across this barrier, and I’d be alone with my coloring books and stuffed animals, just trying to stay quiet. It felt scary and serious, but I didn’t know why.”
The immigration process lasted years—more than a decade of early court dates, lawyer changes, and bureaucratic stress. “It always felt urgent, always felt like if we missed a single thing, everything could fall apart,” said Bianca. “They’d literally say, ‘If you don’t show up at 7 a.m. sharp, you’re deported.’” There was a constant fear, but it was rarely spoken aloud. “There was this hush-hush attitude,” Bella recalled. “We were told not to talk about immigration at school or with friends. As a kid, I didn’t understand why. I thought maybe we had done something wrong.”
Over time, that secrecy turned into shame. “I remember being embarrassed to tell my classmates why I was missing school,” said Beverly. “Courthouses made me think of criminals. It took a long time to understand we weren’t doing anything wrong.”
Despite the anxiety and hardship, their parents tried to soften the edges. “After court, we’d always go to Hong Kong Plaza,” Beverly said. “It became tradition—fried wontons, grocery shopping, maybe some trinkets. That was our little reward, our moment of normalcy.” Bianca credits their parents’ resilience for her own. “I carry a lot of pride now,” she said. “But that pride was built on top of shame. It didn’t come easily.” She remembers feeling out of place growing up—judged for their clothes, for not going on family vacations, for not having what other kids had. “But eventually, you find a way to flip that. You stop hiding, and you start owning your story.”
The sisters each carry that legacy differently. For Bella, it’s about loyalty and family. “I work hard because I know how hard my parents worked to get us here,” she said. “And now I can say things I was once afraid to say. I can talk about getting a green card. I can be proud.” For Beverly, it’s about showing up in creative spaces as her full self. “I’m a designer, and I carry a perspective that’s rooted in being Indonesian, being Melanesian, being a child of immigrants. I walk into spaces knowing I have a different lens—and that’s powerful.” And for Bianca, it's about releasing the guilt and embracing the freedom their parents dreamed of. “They never asked us to become doctors or lawyers. They just wanted us to have the choice. That’s it. To be able to dream, to try something because it's hard, not because we have to survive. I think that was their American Dream.”
The sisters also speak often about their roots in the Moluccan Islands—a part of Indonesia many aren’t familiar with. Their culture is tightly knit, deeply emotional, and grounded in community. “We have this saying from our dad’s island,” said Bianca. “‘Ale rasa, beta rasa’ meaning, when you feel, I feel. One island, one heart.”
Even now, with lives that span careers, marriages, and cities, the sisters find themselves circling back to where they came from—proud of it, not in spite of the hardship, but because of it. “Immigration was just something that happened,” Bianca said. “But it’s also everything. It’s how we learned to be present. To be grateful. To live fully, because someone before us dreamed that we could.”
“When we win, they win too. When we move forward, they all do too. I think that is the backbone of not just the immigrant story, but our life story,”
Join the story
Holding space for the stories that built us and the voices that move us forward.
"We weren’t just leaving a country, we were leaving our childhood behind."
Amy is the daughter of two Chinese immigrants—her mother from Zhengzhou in central China, and her father from Fuzhou, a coastal city near Taiwan. The two met in the 1990s after coming to the University of Nebraska at Omaha on full-ride scholarships for graduate school. They had no financial cushion and spoke almost no English, but they were determined to make it work.
Her mother’s childhood was marked by hardship and ingenuity. Amy remembers hearing a story about a school uniform that had to last her mom from first grade through graduation: “It was an XXL on a tiny girl,” Amy said. “Her mom stitched it tighter when she was young, and then let it out every year until it finally fit.” Food, too, was scarce. Once, her aunt—desperate with hunger—ate a raw piece of meat the family had been saving. “Stories like that stuck with me,” Amy reflected. “It just showed how hard things were.”
Her father’s path was different, but no less difficult. His mother, a devout Buddhist, had consulted her temple before allowing him to leave. The monks told her he would find success in America, and so she let him go—with faith, and eventually with her own labor. She immigrated alongside him and worked as a house cleaner for years, never speaking the language but doing what she could to help him stay afloat.
In Nebraska, Amy’s parents found a small Chinese community but few cultural comforts. “Asian grocery stores were few and far between,” Amy said. “They really missed the food they grew up with.” Their new home also came with the sting of racism and microaggressions that Amy would come to recognize herself as a child.
She lived in Nebraska until the age of twelve. In a predominantly white town, Amy was one of just two Asian kids in her grade. “The food I brought from home was always a topic,” she said. “Even if it was just rice and meat, people would say it smelled weird.” Eventually, she started asking her mom to let her buy school lunch instead. “I was just tired of feeling different.”
It wasn’t just food. Comments about her appearance—her nose, her eyes—became part of her daily life. “Your nose is so flat. Your eyes are so small.” She heard those phrases often, delivered casually by classmates. “I didn’t know how to respond,” she admitted. “I think I just absorbed it.”
Despite those challenges, Amy credits her parents with instilling cultural pride. “I never really felt ashamed of being Chinese,” she said. “Even when people made comments, I still knew where I came from.” She remembers noticing how another Asian student in her school went out of his way to hide his background. “He only ate McDonald’s and never touched homemade food. Seeing that made me feel more grounded in who I was.”
There were moments of joy, too—especially in their backyard. Typical of a Nebraska home, the yard was sprawling and green. Her parents loved to garden. “We had all kinds of vegetables,” Amy remembered. “We’d be out there pulling weeds, planting things, just running around barefoot. It was peaceful.” When her grandparents visited from China, her grandmother would walk her to school—an ordinary act that felt special in the quiet landscape of her childhood.
Today, Amy carries her parents’ story with her. She often feels the pressure of being an only child raised by people who sacrificed everything. “They gave up so much, so of course I feel like I have to make the most of it.” Choosing a creative path wasn’t easy in a family that valued practicality and financial stability. “It took them a while to come around,” she said, “but now they’re proud of me.”
Her parents’ dream was never extravagant. “It was always just to have a nice backyard where they could grow their own vegetables,” Amy said. “And now they’re doing that. Seeing them finally get to enjoy that part of life—it makes me so proud.”
Looking back, working on this project has been emotional. Hearing others’ stories made her reexamine her own. “It made me more grateful,” she said. “You start to appreciate the little things more. And when you’re grateful, you just… feel more grounded. It makes you want to keep going.”
Holding space for the stories that built us and the voices that move us forward.
Holding space for the stories that built us and the voices that move us forward.
Scroll to read more
"They just wanted us to have the choice. To be able to dream, to try something because it's hard, not because we have to survive. I think that was their American Dream."
Bianca remembers standing at the airport window, forehead pressed against the glass, watching her parents walk away. She was just a child—maybe four—but the moment stuck. “We were screaming and crying,” she said. “We didn’t understand what was happening, just that they were going somewhere we couldn’t go.”
Their parents had left Indonesia first, hoping to set down roots before bringing the kids over.
What led their parents to make such a difficult choice was both personal and political. Indonesia in the ’90s was dealing with instability—riots, fallout from decades of dictatorship, and a deep sense of uncertainty. Their mother had a successful business, their father had work, but the dream of education and stability for their children pulled harder. “It was a huge risk,” Bianca said. “They didn’t speak English. They left behind everything—jobs, home, comfort—all based on the hope that life would be better for us here.”
“I remember seeing Dad again for the first time in over a year and a half,” Bianca said. “And it wasn’t this huge emotional reunion. It was more like… oh, there you are.” The realization that everything was different came slowly—at school, in the grocery store, when they noticed how different everything looked and felt. “It was like being in a different world, but trying to act like it was normal,” Bella said.
For Beverly, the youngest, was born in the US, therefore her experience of immigration was secondhand but no less impactful. What she remembers most are early mornings in the car, bundled up in the dark, on the way to immigration court. “I always had to sit separately,” she said. “My family would be across this barrier, and I’d be alone with my coloring books and stuffed animals, just trying to stay quiet. It felt scary and serious, but I didn’t know why.”
The immigration process lasted years—more than a decade of early court dates, lawyer changes, and bureaucratic stress. “It always felt urgent, always felt like if we missed a single thing, everything could fall apart,” said Bianca. “They’d literally say, ‘If you don’t show up at 7 a.m. sharp, you’re deported.’” There was a constant fear, but it was rarely spoken aloud. “There was this hush-hush attitude,” Bella recalled. “We were told not to talk about immigration at school or with friends. As a kid, I didn’t understand why. I thought maybe we had done something wrong.”
Over time, that secrecy turned into shame. “I remember being embarrassed to tell my classmates why I was missing school,” said Beverly. “Courthouses made me think of criminals. It took a long time to understand we weren’t doing anything wrong.”
Despite the anxiety and hardship, their parents tried to soften the edges. “After court, we’d always go to Hong Kong Plaza,” Beverly said. “It became tradition—fried wontons, grocery shopping, maybe some trinkets. That was our little reward, our moment of normalcy.” Bianca credits their parents’ resilience for her own. “I carry a lot of pride now,” she said. “But that pride was built on top of shame. It didn’t come easily.” She remembers feeling out of place growing up—judged for their clothes, for not going on family vacations, for not having what other kids had. “But eventually, you find a way to flip that. You stop hiding, and you start owning your story.”
The sisters each carry that legacy differently. For Bella, it’s about loyalty and family. “I work hard because I know how hard my parents worked to get us here,” she said. “And now I can say things I was once afraid to say. I can talk about getting a green card. I can be proud.” For Beverly, it’s about showing up in creative spaces as her full self. “I’m a designer, and I carry a perspective that’s rooted in being Indonesian, being Melanesian, being a child of immigrants. I walk into spaces knowing I have a different lens—and that’s powerful.” And for Bianca, it's about releasing the guilt and embracing the freedom their parents dreamed of. “They never asked us to become doctors or lawyers. They just wanted us to have the choice. That’s it. To be able to dream, to try something because it's hard, not because we have to survive. I think that was their American Dream.”
The sisters also speak often about their roots in the Moluccan Islands—a part of Indonesia many aren’t familiar with. Their culture is tightly knit, deeply emotional, and grounded in community. “We have this saying from our dad’s island,” said Bianca. “‘Ale rasa, beta rasa’ meaning, when you feel, I feel. One island, one heart.”
Even now, with lives that span careers, marriages, and cities, the sisters find themselves circling back to where they came from—proud of it, not in spite of the hardship, but because of it. “Immigration was just something that happened,” Bianca said. “But it’s also everything. It’s how we learned to be present. To be grateful. To live fully, because someone before us dreamed that we could.”
The struggle that it took my parents to come here and become successful in a foreign place is something that is always on my mind.
Holding space for the stories that built us and the voices that move us forward.
Holding space for the stories that built us and the voices that move us forward.
Scroll to read more
"They just wanted us to have the choice. To be able to dream, to try something because it's hard, not because we have to survive. I think that was their American Dream."
Bianca remembers standing at the airport window, forehead pressed against the glass, watching her parents walk away. She was just a child—maybe four—but the moment stuck. “We were screaming and crying,” she said. “We didn’t understand what was happening, just that they were going somewhere we couldn’t go.”
Their parents had left Indonesia first, hoping to set down roots before bringing the kids over.
What led their parents to make such a difficult choice was both personal and political. Indonesia in the ’90s was dealing with instability—riots, fallout from decades of dictatorship, and a deep sense of uncertainty. Their mother had a successful business, their father had work, but the dream of education and stability for their children pulled harder. “It was a huge risk,” Bianca said. “They didn’t speak English. They left behind everything—jobs, home, comfort—all based on the hope that life would be better for us here.”
“I remember seeing Dad again for the first time in over a year and a half,” Bianca said. “And it wasn’t this huge emotional reunion. It was more like… oh, there you are.” The realization that everything was different came slowly—at school, in the grocery store, when they noticed how different everything looked and felt. “It was like being in a different world, but trying to act like it was normal,” Bella said.
For Beverly, the youngest, was born in the US, therefore her experience of immigration was secondhand but no less impactful. What she remembers most are early mornings in the car, bundled up in the dark, on the way to immigration court. “I always had to sit separately,” she said. “My family would be across this barrier, and I’d be alone with my coloring books and stuffed animals, just trying to stay quiet. It felt scary and serious, but I didn’t know why.”
The immigration process lasted years—more than a decade of early court dates, lawyer changes, and bureaucratic stress. “It always felt urgent, always felt like if we missed a single thing, everything could fall apart,” said Bianca. “They’d literally say, ‘If you don’t show up at 7 a.m. sharp, you’re deported.’” There was a constant fear, but it was rarely spoken aloud. “There was this hush-hush attitude,” Bella recalled. “We were told not to talk about immigration at school or with friends. As a kid, I didn’t understand why. I thought maybe we had done something wrong.”
Over time, that secrecy turned into shame. “I remember being embarrassed to tell my classmates why I was missing school,” said Beverly. “Courthouses made me think of criminals. It took a long time to understand we weren’t doing anything wrong.”
Despite the anxiety and hardship, their parents tried to soften the edges. “After court, we’d always go to Hong Kong Plaza,” Beverly said. “It became tradition—fried wontons, grocery shopping, maybe some trinkets. That was our little reward, our moment of normalcy.” Bianca credits their parents’ resilience for her own. “I carry a lot of pride now,” she said. “But that pride was built on top of shame. It didn’t come easily.” She remembers feeling out of place growing up—judged for their clothes, for not going on family vacations, for not having what other kids had. “But eventually, you find a way to flip that. You stop hiding, and you start owning your story.”
The sisters each carry that legacy differently. For Bella, it’s about loyalty and family. “I work hard because I know how hard my parents worked to get us here,” she said. “And now I can say things I was once afraid to say. I can talk about getting a green card. I can be proud.” For Beverly, it’s about showing up in creative spaces as her full self. “I’m a designer, and I carry a perspective that’s rooted in being Indonesian, being Melanesian, being a child of immigrants. I walk into spaces knowing I have a different lens—and that’s powerful.” And for Bianca, it's about releasing the guilt and embracing the freedom their parents dreamed of. “They never asked us to become doctors or lawyers. They just wanted us to have the choice. That’s it. To be able to dream, to try something because it's hard, not because we have to survive. I think that was their American Dream.”
The sisters also speak often about their roots in the Moluccan Islands—a part of Indonesia many aren’t familiar with. Their culture is tightly knit, deeply emotional, and grounded in community. “We have this saying from our dad’s island,” said Bianca. “‘Ale rasa, beta rasa’ meaning, when you feel, I feel. One island, one heart.”
Even now, with lives that span careers, marriages, and cities, the sisters find themselves circling back to where they came from—proud of it, not in spite of the hardship, but because of it. “Immigration was just something that happened,” Bianca said. “But it’s also everything. It’s how we learned to be present. To be grateful. To live fully, because someone before us dreamed that we could.”