I feel like every first/second gen American has some story of funny/odd advice from their immigrant family.
My favorite is my Italian grandmother telling me “My grandchildren can marry anyone they want, so long as it’s a Catholic who eats garlic.”
I feel like every first/second gen American has some story of funny/odd advice from their immigrant family.
My favorite is my Italian grandmother telling me “My grandchildren can marry anyone they want, so long as it’s a Catholic who eats garlic.”
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Not family, but my best friend in and immediately after High School was first generation Romanian-American (he was born in the US, parents were not). I was unemployed for a few months and his mom told me to apply to some non-existent government agency for work. She grew up in Communist Romania so lengthy unemployment was illegal, and if you couldn’t find work the government would pay you to do stuff like dig ditches and then fill them back up again. She thought that was a thing over in the US too.
My grandpa couldn’t understand why my cousins and I would try to be anything but astronauts.
They never directly said not to trust doctors but they acted like every medical professional was a charlatan out there to scam you.
I don’t think I have gotten any funny advice but my parents are from Canada so it’s not like there are a lot of misconceptions or cultural differences.
When Modern Family came out my grandma said we, “need ‘a gay’ so we can be a true American family.” She then put her arm on my brother’s shoulder and said, “remember, family requires sacrifice.”
I’m first generation and was told to stay away from Catholics and Jews in high school when it came to dating. Made it my mission to come home with as many O’Learys and Friedmans as I could to simply punish my parents.
My grandparents were against the “mixed” marriage between my uncle who was Methodist and my aunt who was Dutch Reformed. But that marriage got the ball rolling. Within 30 years our family went from completely originating from 2-3 small towns in a northern province of the Netherlands to now we have a dozen or more nationalities represented at our family reunions now.
40 years ago. I’m in high school – I’m a pasty white/blond kid, one of my friends is Taiwanese.
I eat lunch go to his house. His family is having lunch. You might know what’s coming. I’m getting a second lunch…
Friend’s mom says: “You need to make sure that you eat well, or you will marry a cat!”
Years later, I learn that some Chinese cultures have arranged marriages, so that kind of proverb has an underlying meaning of “be a good kid, or your arranged marriage won’t be what you want.” Of course, Mrs. Huang did not have that kind of meaning, and I love cats…
My grandmother told my mother that in a mixed religion family, the children follow the mother’s religion. This is consistent with what I have found over generations of genealogy records. But she told my uncle that the children should follow their father’s religion. This is the closest thing to a lie that she ever said, so it was obviously very important to her
Edit: My Nana’s parents emigrated from a country that classified people by religion, prohibited some churches, etc.
The weirdest piece that’s ingrained in me is you always leave the house thru the same door as you entered. Otherwise you leave the door “open” to unwanted visitors/guests.
I’m sorry OP, but I don’t believe that your Italian grandmother said that. Two threads down from this is a thread where the European OP assures us that real Italians don’t eat garlic.
Not really advice, but my great grandfather was Norwegian and called my aunt “the girl,” because he couldn’t pronounce “Darlene.”
My uncle married a girl from Laos. When we were driving around in Thailand, I remember how packed the streets were. Rickshaws and motorcycles would use any open space next to the street they can find to navigate around. She immigrated to the US with us when we returned, landing at LAX.
On our drive back home, we got stuck in traffic. She casually said that there’s so much space and for us to just use it and drive around them. The space she was referring to was the shoulder on the interstate. We had to inform her that that was not acceptable. To this day, my uncle does not let her get her driver’s license and will drive her around instead.
My dad’s grandparents were all from Ireland. Mom is first generation to Italian parents. Apparently when my dad brought my mom to his grandparent to say they were getting married his granny started crying and his grandpa said “you’re breaking her heart can’t you find an Irish girl?…it will be ok At least she’s Catholic not like the Christ k——er your brother married”. This was all in front of my mom. Hey at least great grandpa was grudgingly tolerant of someone
i dont have one like that but i did thoroughly enjoy my grandmother in law trying to convince my wife and i that ounces in Honduras go up past 30
her daughter (my MIL) was 10 pounds and 31 ounces lol supposedly
it was a heated conversation with many “mijo” ‘s thrown around lol
I’m not sure this is funny, but my grandparents were Dutch from the war generation, and they hated Germans. They lived through the occupation and emigrated to the US in the 60s. I could do no wrong their eyes as long as I did not study German, date a German girl, etc. They made their preferences pretty clear.
My dad is from a 3rd world country with a high crime rate.
Growing up, everytime we went out – he me told to hide all my electronics under furniture before so they wouldn’t be visible to potential looters.
We lived in a low-crime area…
>”Dad – Nobody is going to break in to steal a crusty $100 laptop with a semi-functional mousepad and scotch tape keeping the charger alive zzz”
“We’re AMERICAN” any time anyone would ask where we were from (my family was out of Russia, but originally from Germany; “Volga Germans” from Saratov, Russia, and Jewish). I failed a school assignment because of this in the 4th grade. It was a mess lol