The Story
of
Grace Lee
by Elizabeth Leung
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D
aybreak greets the Lee family with a cup of water on the bedstand and a single bowl of oatmeal on the counter. Every morning, those two items sit on the counter, as if whisked there by a fairy godmother, who prescribes water to wash away impurities and oatmeal to start off the day with a burst of energy. Grace Lee may not be a fairy, but she has been a godmother to the children and parents she has helped. A teacher, an immigrant mother, a babysitter, a housekeeper, Grace has 2
had a lifetime of adaption - to different jobs, to a new country and culture, and to different families and their needs. From the wealthy but helpless Ba Ho to Gu Leng and her two mischievous children, Grace found the balance between the leniency of a babysitter and the strictness of a teacher to best benefit her employers.
B
orn in 1942 in Guangxi, China, Grace grew up the underdog. Her mother taught her to swim at a young age, even be-
fore she could walk. “I’m so small, but back in school, I outswam everyone, people who were much bigger,” Grace laughs as she relishes in her memories of the swim team. Inspired by her success in the swim team, Grace would pursue a career as a swimming teacher. Although her mother helped with caring for Grace’s two young sons, Grace still found her days stuffed full with teaching at work and returning home to look after her family. Sympathizing with other working mothers, Grace decided then that when her teaching career
ended, she would help out working mothers by babysitting their children. In the 1990s, political turmoil in China pushed droves of immigrants to the United States (2008 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics). Among those numbers was Grace, who immigrated to the United States in 1994 with her two sons to join her waiting husband and his family. Like other immigrants, Grace arrived in search of the American Dream of success through hard work. She, like others, arrived in the rundown areas of San Francisco dirt-poor, with little material belongings to call her own (“Introduction to Is the American Dream a Myth?”). However, Grace had something even more valuable: her experience as a teacher, which had infused in her a policy of perseverance no matter the odds. Browsing through job ads in the newspapers, Grace found her first job
as a housekeeper for an old woman. The old woman, Ba Ho, was both completely dependent on her hired help and suspicious of their help - a contradiction which served to drive most of her workers away. Her constant fear that they would steal her material belongings led to daily tantrums where she would accuse and berate them for stealing belongings that were right in front of her. Grace alone
stayed, but her history of teaching would not allow her to let Ho run free when she was wrong. In the midst of the daily routine of counting some seeds, Ho miscounted and wailed that someone had stolen a handful of seeds. Turning to the closest person to her, Ho pointed the finger at Grace. Grace refused to resign to her fate. Hands on her hips, she marched up to Ho and recounted all the seeds, proving to Ho that all the seeds were safe and sound. She left the seeds that Ho had counted and gathered up the surplus. “Well, okay, I guess this means that the rest of these are mine!” Grace was just as strict with the children she babysitted, but she knew such straightforward tactics would not work on children. Gu Leng, an old friend of Grace’s, had been looking
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for a babysitter to look after her young children. The dysfunctional family dynamics and poverty-stricken environment did not appeal to most applicants, who all quit after several days. With both parents working fulltime, the pair of children, sibling pair four-year-old En and two-year-old Eva, had been left to their own devices, which included skipping school and making trouble for everyone around them. Their parents, who recognized the value of education for their children’s future, dragged both of them to school daily, a routine that culminated in En kicking the principal and getting suspended. Without knowing the whole story, Grace agreed to help, if only temporarily. Her first day consisted of running after En and Eva, who were just as determinedly tearing up her hard work. “I peeled an apple for them,” Grace recalls. “They threw it away and ate the apple skins instead.” Taking advantage of her experience as a swimming teacher, Grace took the children to the pool, where they could be as mischievous as they liked, and she could teach them useful skills their parents would approve of. Parents’ and children’s desires often clashed to less compromising results. 4
Grace’s current job in the Leung family dictates that she listen to the father, mother, and two kids, all of whom may have conflicting requests. Grace has always relied on her own judgement of what would be best for the children to create a plan of action, even if it clashes with both the parents’ and the children’s requests. According to Stephen Leung, Grace’s current employer, she often disregards his instructions, especially for dinner. However, he admits that in the long run, this sometimes benefited the entire family. “The way she cooks is more healthy. If she took my instructions, it would be less healthy but more tasty.”
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ut work has always come second to Grace. During her contract with Ho, Grace, stuck at a job two hours away from her family, found herself unable to cope with the separation from her husband and two
sons. A devout Christian, Grace prayed daily for her family to be reunited. Her faith provided Grace with her positive outlook on life and gratefulness, but as her sons entered high school, the job became less and less appealing to Grace, and she decided to quit. Not eager to lose such a valued employee, Ho quickly offered to raise the salary to $1200, which Grace just as quickly turned down. “It wasn’t a matter of money; I missed my husband and sons,” Grace explains. Faced with losing Grace, Ho made a more extravagant offer: the $1200 salary, a house to call her own in Mountain View, and a job for Grace’s husband. Grace jumped on the offer right away; not only would she not have to compromise between work and family, her sons would also get access to better education and a safer neighborhood, and her husband would get a lucrative job offer. This small, two story house, would serve
Grace and her family for 20 years, long after Grace had stopped working for the old woman. After Grace’s father’s death, Grace arranged for her mother to immigrate to the United States in 2002. Since then, Grace has been caring for her. “She won’t stop coming over,” Mrs. Wong says. “At least three times a day-in the morning for breakfast, noon for lunch, and evening for dinner.” When she is no longer needed at the Leung household, Grace plans to focus on her family and charitable work instead of job-seeking again. “I’m old now, I don’t dare to challenge too
much,” Grace says. Although she doesn’t want to add to her list of employers, Grace still keeps up contact with her previous employers. Upon receiving her inheritance in China, Ho fell ill and passed away, leaving the money to her children, who squandered it all away. Gu Leng, whose children have long since graduated college, constantly invites Grace to stay with her in her mountaintop home. Although Grace has visited the luxurious house, the news of a nearby car crash discouraged her from visiting regularly. As long as her health permits, Grace
wants to continue to help people find their “happy ending.” Already highly involved in her church community, Grace plans to help out even more. Expanding on her role as a cook, she wants to provide poor students attending Stanford and other nearby schools with free meals so that they can focus on studying. Grace fulfilled her American Dream with the toils of hard labor, but she would not define her life as difficult. Instead, she is grateful for everything she has been blessed with. “In this life, not much is that difficult.” 5