Life of a Little Sister 2- Available on Amazon

Chapter 27-immigrants

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Greg let me in without a word, no one else would be home for at least the next hour, I went into the living room and sat on the couch. I grabbed the remote and started flipping through netflix movies I could possibly watch.

"Are you allowed to watch TV?" Greg finally asked, clearly his vow of silence was over.

"Yes." I said, not making eye contact.

"Why do I somehow not believe that?"

"Don't you have something better to do right now?"

"Watch it Lydia,"

"I'm being serious, you haven't come up to see how I'm doing once and now all of a sudden you're incredibly concerned about me watching Netflix. Is it just fun you're against? Or me? I can never tell." I rolled my eyes.

He was speechless, I could tell I caught him off guard.

"I know we haven't been on good terms, but you didn't even come upstairs once to see how I was doing. Melvin and Marcus I get because they're the ones that did this to me, but you?"

"Lyd-"

"No I don't want to hear it, clearly you were fine giving me shit like the rest of the boys. I prefer when you were giving me the silent treatment."

"You prefer me being upset with you?" He asked.

I finally looked at him. He seemed incredibly sincere when he asked that.

"Is that why you've been going out of your way to disobey the family?"

"I'm not disobeying 'the family' I'm disobeying your crazy older brother who everyone is trying to please for some strange mafia related reason." I said.

"Don't disrespect Felix you know he's the only one who's ever looked out for us." Greg started to get heated.

"Yes I know you had that drug issue when you were younger and Felix helped you but Dad is is still our Dad! He didn't have as huge of a problem with me dating than you guys." I was so annoyed with him constantly putting Felix's word above our parents'.

"He doesn't understand it! They're immigrants they don't know any better."

A little explanation for the folks out there who don't understand how immigrant families work. What my lovely brother was saying may seem on the outside as dismissive and rude and even a little cocky but it was true to an extent.

My parents may have come here 25 years ago, but we've been their translators, their tv repairmen, their technology experts, their advocates, and even chauffeurs at times, for as long as we've been alive. When you have an immigrant parent you go to the doctors office and it's not your mom speaking for you, it's you speaking. When the phone bill is unusually high you're the one on the phone with their customer service. Your parents (who don't know much about your school) let your brothers slide with eh grades, because they're just happy you're in a school.

I know when my brothers were younger they were able to take advantage of my parents because they were so focused on getting the business to be successful and provide for their family.

Not that they neglected their kids, just the opposite. They were busy making sure we have a roof over our heads and food on the table, but they also weren't on our asses about our future because their futures were just as uncertain.

Greg, and especially Felix were so set in the mindset that our parents are helpless that they took on the parental role.

It makes sense as to why they're so protective. They were put in the adult role at a young age and now I was suffering for it.