Long Division

My difficulties as a 2nd generation Asian-American in elementary school.

Long Division

    We sat across from each other not knowing what to do. I was crying because I didn’t understand any of it, but I was also crying because I know he didn’t either. I hated math. The homework always took me the longest time to complete. I would do fine in class when we were all simply working out the normal looking math. That is, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division: even long division. I knew what to do. I knew the rules when it came to math. However, math would ultimately frustrate me when it was put in front of me in the form of a story. How was I supposed to know what the equation wanted me to do with all these words jumbling up the actual math?

    When I didn’t know what to do and was desperate enough, I asked my dad for help. My mom worked second shift so she was never there when I did homework. It would start out okay. He’d ask me, “What don’t you understand?”  I would show him and he would look at my other problems that I had completed. Then he would ask, “Why are these questions different?” Out of frustration, the answer would be, “’Cause they are Dad. I don’t know what to do here. I read all the words but I’m still confused.”

    “Read it again,” he would say, as if I hadn’t already read the question twenty times. I would try to concentrate really hard but then I’d be distracted by his presence. Knowing that he was there watching me and expecting me to have a light bulb go off was intimidating. I didn’t want to disappoint him. Yet, there were many times I did.

    “I still don’t get it.” His face would go from anticipation to disappointment and frustration. Being the oldest daughter wasn’t easy. I was the first one for a lot of things my family had to go through. I was expected be a role model for other children I knew and exceed my parents’ expectations. All Asian children were expected to. A common theme that runs through every second generation Asian-American is their parents' voices saying: “We want you to be better than us.”

    “Why don’t you understand it? You’re supposed to go to school and learn this stuff. Homework is practice. If you don’t understand how to do this when you get home, then you haven’t been paying enough attention in class.”

    “Dad, I’m just confused. What am I supposed to do? Can you help me out even a little?”

    “What does this word mean? And this one?”

    And so, the result is the beginning once again. In a father-daughter relationship, the ties are severed and divided. A gap has begun to form and we continue to sit in the silence interrupted by my tears and just trying to think of a way to close it with a solution. We both feel we lack the requirements for situations like this to work them out smoothly.  I start to cry because I feel like a failure and he feels guilty because he can’t help his daughter. Situations like this may seem to be short-lived because they happen in spurts and are forgotten about the next day, but they happen often enough that the problem stretches out over the years of my childhood like the gak my sister and I used to enjoy playing with. It would always end up breaking into pieces but before the break, the material got to be quite long.