When “Better Education” Means Uprooting Everything

When “Better Education” Means Uprooting Everything

This week, I came across an article by Ko Lyn Cheang in the San Francisco Chronicle about what’s being called “climbing the ivy”, Chinese immigrant families moving to the Bay Area, especially Palo Alto, with the express purpose of giving their children a shot at the most elite U.S. universities. San Francisco Chronicle

Reading it, I felt a kind of mirror, a gut-level recognition. Because that was part of my own journey, too. In 1960, I came to the US for Graduate School, with the hope that the good education I will achieved will give me a better chance of a good life in the Philippines. But as it turned out after receiving my Ph.D degree, I decided to stay in the US. And the rest is history.    

1. The Quiet Cost of Sacrifice

When I immigrated here, I carried with me the same hope Ko Lyn describes in her article: that America would offer my children something freer, more flexible, more open than I had known. Back home, education felt like a grinding machine, all gaokao pressure, all performance at once. Here, I believed, they could breathe a little and could led a better life.

But “breathing” came at a steep price. Ko Lyn talks about “study mothers” (peidu mamas) who leave behind professional success, friends, even their cultural safety net, to support their children’s education in a land where they’re often outsiders. San Francisco Chronicle 

I see so much of that in my own past: the hours spent helping with homework, the parenting guilt about not speaking the language of my heritage, the constant balancing of two worlds.

There were times when I wondered: did I do the right thing? Did uprooting give me more, or did I ask too much of me?

2. Re-defining Success

One thing Ko Lyn’s piece highlights is how some of these parents, through their sacrifice, come to a different understanding of why they came. Yes, they want Ivy League doors to open; but more deeply, they want their children to become whole people, not just test-score machines. San Francisco Chronicle

That resonates deeply. In my blogs, when I reflect on legacy, not just what we leave in terms of property or success, but the values we pass on,  I realize that education is more than prestige. It’s about character. It’s about empathy, resilience, rootedness.

The risk, of course, is that “rootedness” gets stretched thin. When you leave everything familiar behind, how do you help your children feel anchored  to family, to tradition, to their identity while also preparing them to compete in a system that often rewards ambition more than belonging?

3. Cultural Displacement Isn’t Just Geography

Moving for opportunity is not just a physical relocation, it's emotional, cultural, and psychological. Ko Lyn describes families navigating language barriers, limited careers, and a sense of isolation. San Francisco Chronicle

I remember those early days in this country: the awkward silences when I couldn’t explain something in English, the homesickness for Filipino food, for conversations in my mother tongue, the tiny pangs when my children didn’t understand my references to back home.

What does “better life” mean if the cost is a quiet erasure of what made home home? For many immigrants, this tension lingers in everyday choices: Which language do I speak at home? Do I send them to a school where their peers look like them, or into a melting pot where they might feel more “American”? When my children were growing up, I asked a Psychiatrist Friend, if we can teach them Tagalog-my native tongue. She recommended that it might just confused them and their assimilation to US could be hindered. This was the biggest mistake my family ever made. When my children become adults, they told us it would have been an asset to them if they we thought them Tagalog.      

4. The Pressure of Legacy

There’s a weight that sits on immigrant parents’ shoulders, the idea that everything is at stake. This isn’t just about giving your kids educational advantage; it’s about redeeming sacrifice. It’s believing that leaving everything behind must mean something. Ko Lyn’s article captures how that pressure sometimes leads to a life of quiet struggle for parents: the “sacrifice narrative” is real, and it’s not without its fragility.

5. Bridging Two Worlds

But amidst the pain and the sacrifice, I also feel a deep pride, the kind Ko Lyn describes in her article about how families transform through the experience. San Francisco Chronicle Those “study mothers” don’t just remake their children’s futures; they remake themselves. They learn new languages, navigate new systems, and expand their definitions of success and identity.

For me, that has meant holding space for both worlds: remembering the home I left, but investing fully in the home I help build now. It means telling my kids not just to climb, but to ground, so they know what they’re striving for, and who they are when they get there.

6. A Prayer and a Hope

If I were to send them a message to my children/grandchildren, or to the invisible community of immigrant parents who read Ko Lyn’s article and feel their own story it would be this:

• May your ambition be tempered with compassion. Ivy League status is not the only measure of worth.

• May you know the deep roots of your story. The immigrant narrative isn’t just a launchpad,  it’s a foundation.

• May your successes lift others. Use what this sacrifice gave you not just for yourself, but to build more bridges.

• May you stay gentle with the parts of you that still ache. Leaving home is not just a choice; it’s a loss. Honor that.

Closing Thoughts

Ko Lyn Cheang’s piece is a powerful reminder: the choices we make as immigrant parents are rarely simple. When we uproot, we do it for hope but uprooting changes us fundamentally. It reshapes our identities, our families, and our dreams.

For me, writing this blog is part of keeping that tension alive: acknowledging the cost, embracing the complexity, and celebrating the courage. Because this journey, yours, mine, all of ours is not just about “premier schools” or prestige. It’s about home, in every sense of that word.