Experiencing The Generational Rift Firsthand
By wchung | 22 Feb, 2025

My recent foray into blue collar labor let me see the generational rift firsthand.

I recently took up a temp job as a favor to a parent from my church. It was probably the hardest earned $140.00 I’ve ever gotten and I’ve done some pretty grimy stuff in my past. I was basically working in a warehouse setting, running an assembly line styled operation to put labels on aluminum cases. But when one is presently unemployed as I am, you can’t complain. What I am trying to get at is that the opportunity opened my eyes to really how much of a gap there is between Asian American generations.

I’ve heard it all before. In fact, I hear it every week at the family dinner. “You guys are lazy. You don’t understand what I used to do back in Taiwan. When I first got to the States, I was working 3 jobs and taking loans just to survive. You’ve got it easy.” I always wrote off such talk as sensationalism designed to kick me in the butt a little bit. You know, the classic, “I walked 5 miles to the west barefoot with a burro next to me three towns over to gather aluminum shavings from the local factory to melt down and resell at the town 10 miles the other direction past the local volcano where I had to avoid magma potholes.”

Maybe nothing as bad as that scenario, but you get the picture. Well, at the temp job, I did get a taste of the work ethic of my parent’s generation because while a couple friends and I ran the assembly line to one side of the warehouse as temps, on the other side were 3 middle-aged Cantonese mom/grandmas that were doing the same job. They punched in every morning at 8:30 and punched out to take an unpaid lunch, punched back in and finished out the day, all at a rate just teetering on minimum wage. You see, we could press on and finish off the job because we knew the prospect of the job being over was just around the corner. It was only a two-day job. But for these 3 women, this is their daily grind. Lifting heavy 50 pound boxes, cutting your hands on cardboard, breathing in dust particles and diesel fumes and tirelessly doing the same repetitive motions until your hands become claws. In fact, they’re probably doing this all now as I type this and I really feel bad for them.

But they did it all without complaining. They gave us tips on how to be more efficient. They helped us with our workload when things got overwhelming. They smiled, laughed and chitchatted the day away. My friends and I hit productivity lows on the second and last day. My brother was sick so he was of little use, and the two girls that came with me couldn’t do heavy lifting so that duty fell on me so I was bumming out because my back was already sore from the day before. The girls were getting burned out quick too. Our attitudes were terrible and when the “boss” finally took us aside and paid us that last day, I was more happy that it was over than the fact that I got paid. When he said that he would contact us if there was any more temp work in the future, I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud.

So here’s to you of my parent’s generation. I see your work ethic firsthand and can only hope to be half as productive as you all are. Thank you for all of your help and support.

12-04-2009 11.14