McKinley High School has more than 400 students of Chinese ethnicity. That’s 24 percent of the school population. Many of them immigrated here recently and English is their second language.

I am also a Chinese immigrant. I came to Hawaii in 2009. From personal experience and from talking to fellow Chinese immigrants, I know there are pros and cons to learning in Hawaii. I recently joined a group of six Chinese immigrants talking together at lunch recess and asked them about their experiences. All of this group was from Fujian, which is a province in the south of China.

All students interviewed wished to be anonymous. The conversation was in Chinese.

I asked, “Do you like it here?”

One boy replied, “No, Fujian is better for us.”

A girl elaborated, “At least we can communicate there.”

Another girl compared her grades in China to her grades in Hawaii.

“I always got nice grades in China. I usually got 80% percent correct on my English tests.”

Another girl talked about how hard life is here for her family.

“My parents have to work really hard with low income.”

Another compared her home in China to her home in Hawaii.

“We have a big house in China.”

In her hometown, her family had their own land and built their own house.

Another place many of the Chinese immigrants at McKinley come from is the city of Zongshan in Guangdong Province, also in southern China.

One girl from Zongshan told me she likes Hawaii better because she thinks studying here is good for her future, and people are nice.

Despite the good in Hawaii, most Chinese immigrants miss China. In China are their friends, neighborhoods, school life, family group, a lot of thing to miss. When they were in China, they had less to worry about, but they had to leave for a lot of reasons. They hope to come to America and make a better life. Even if they work a low-paying job, the money is worth a lot when sent back to China. Perhaps the children couldn’t get into a good school in China.

Once here, Chinese immigrants can feel helpless, but they must stay for their children’s education or to earn more money to send back to China for their old grandparents. They must sometimes sacrifice their own happiness for their family.

Students and staff at McKinley should know how difficult their life here is even thought they seem happy on the surface. They are just waiting for the time they can visit their homeland again.

Please help if you have any immigrant classmates or friends around you!!