Family of 10

Yu Jie Chen

Minnesota | Chinese

About 36 years ago, I immigrated to Minnesota with my mom, two aunts, and 10 other children who were my siblings and cousins, ranging in age from several months old to 11 years old.

One day, in a peaceful village in Kinglam, Onfen, Guangdong, China where about 200 people call it home, I was told to get into a minivan. All of the kids and moms got in the vehicle and off we left the village where everyone knew everybody’s name and everybody is very much alike. On the way to America, we stayed temporarily with friends and relatives in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

When we arrived in the cold Minnesota, at the age of nine I met my grandpa for the first time. None of us knew any English. We brought with us what we could carry in a few suitcases, with little money. We came to a place where we did not know the people, the food, the environment, and the culture. The kids reunited with their fathers and the wives with their husbands who had arrived in Minnesota six months earlier. My grandfather who immigrated to Minnesota in 1973 found work for his three sons.

My family and my uncle’s family rented this very old house in Minneapolis. Each family had one bedroom and we shared a small kitchen that fit a table and some chairs. Eleven people crowded into this kitchen to eat. Two families shared one car.

A couple of years later, the two families purchased a house together and our grandparents also lived with us. Our grandparents lived on the third level, my family lived on the second level and my uncle’s family lived on the main level. Each family had two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. My parents kept on telling us kids that we need to learn English and do well in school. And I did. I stayed up late many nights to study and graduated with honors in South West High School, Minneapolis. I was on the Student Council and on the National Honor Society. My parents and grandparents never had the opportunity to attend high school or higher level education in rural Guangdong, China. My parents wanted their kids to have the opportunity to go to college. And we did. I was the first in my family to graduate with a college degree.

My parents worked very long hours working at Chinese restaurants. I started my full-time summer job at the age of 14 at a Housing Resource Center in Minneapolis as an office assistant. I took two buses to go to work. Then I worked part-time at a Chinese take-out restaurant in Minneapolis where my mom was a chef and again I took two buses to work. In the evening when the restaurant closed, my mom and I walked 6 blocks in the dark to where my dad worked as a chef so we could get a ride home. Sometimes when my dad had to work near midnight to clean the kitchen hood, my mom and I took two buses home to Uptown, Minneapolis.

Eight years later after our arrival to Minnesota, my family was very excited to purchase a Chinese restaurant in Shakopee. My father went from being a bookkeeper and mom, a farmer in China to chefs in the United States and then restaurant business owners. That was their dream. My parents later sold their successful restaurant business to my older sister and retired. I went from working in various companies holding administrative, supervisor, and management positions to stay-at-home mom to career real estate professional. I am happily married, have two great kids, live in a comfortable house, and have a career that kept me up at night. So we did alright.

#MinneAsianStories Series