Not Bad For Some Immigrants, Ep. 4: Uh... Do We *All* Have 'Eldest Immigrant Daughter Syndrome'?
‘Eldest immigrant daughter syndrome’ isn’t technically a thing. At least, it’s not a real diagnosis you can receive from a medical professional. But anyone who knows an eldest immigrant daughter—or is one—is probably familiar with the type, if not the term. According to Vice, “eldest daughters in any family are easy to spot: They’re labelled bossy, people-pleasers, the ‘mum’ of the friendship group, the kind of type-A personality that organises your get-togethers and is strung tighter than a Skims bikini. But eldest daughters of immigrants? Jeez. Think the eldest daughter trope on crack, or at least that pill from Limitless.” Speaking as one myself… yeah, kinda. And as Business Insider put it last year, we’re exhausted.
So, in this episode of Friday Talks: Not Bad For Some Immigrants, Caroline Mangosing, founder and creative director of modern Filipiniana fashion brand Vinta Gallery, and filmmaker v.t. nayani chat about the obligations and expectations immigrant families place on their daughters, why this ‘syndrome’ is common across cultures and the complicated reality of giving our loved ones care.
Hosted by Friday Things founder and editor Stacy Lee Kong, Not Bad For Some Immigrants is a six-part video series about the stories we tell about immigrants in pop culture, media and real life. It rejects the focus on striving—to succeed, to assimilate, to be judged worthy of belonging in, and to, our new homes—that so often infiltrate stories about our experiences, and instead makes space for complicated, nuanced and joyful conversations about what it actually costs to build a new life, the stories we learn to tell about ourselves and what it really means to belong.