Reflections on Academic Guilt and Family Responsibilities

I have one hour until my discussion questions are due. As I am writing my last question, I am interrupted by a phone call. I look at my phone; it's my mother's doctor's office. I answer with a heavy heart. "Hi, Kim. This is [name] at [doctor's office]. We need to reschedule your mom's biopsy appointment. Does Wednesday at 7:30 a.m. work for you?"

I start to panic and desperately ask, "I'm sorry, but is there any way I can keep that appointment? I usually take my mom to her appointments, but I'm in Colorado right now in graduate school. I won't be able to come home for another few weeks. The only person that can take my mom to this appointment is my oldest sister, but she has to take her two children to school at 7:30. Is there anything you can do?"

I am immediately inundated with feelings of guilt, shame, and fear. If I didn't go to graduate school, I would be able to take my mother to all her medical appointments, interpret and translate for her, and provide her with emotional support. Most importantly, I would feel that I was doing everything I could to protect and support my mom. I am afraid that I am being a "bad" Vietnamese daughter who selfishly lives in another state and barely earns a living talking about sociological theory and research methods while her mother may be battling breast cancer for a second time.

"Let me see what I can do. I will give you a call back."

"Thank you. I appreciate it." I hang up the phone. I feel an unbearable weight push me down into my chair. I support my heavy head with my hands. As my tears start to form, I realize that I can't hold them back. I cover my eyes and try to cry as softly as I can—so as not to disturb other graduate students and research faculty working in the adjacent cubicles and offices. Like many other moments in graduate school, I feel out of place and alone. Most of the time, these feelings are from my experiences of being a person of color in academia and in Colorado—where I often notice that I am the only person of color in a classroom, coffee shop, or restaurant—in addition to the academic pressure to read and write constantly, often by myself. However, this time, these feelings are also due to feeling that my family is so far away.

This fear and sadness are also deeply intertwined with the trauma of my dad's death. During my senior year of high school, my father fell ill and, soon after, was diagnosed with advanced-stage liver cancer. Neither of my parents had completed grade school and were refugees from Vietnam. As such, they relied on me to navigate the U.S. healthcare system and translate medical documents. However, because my family was working-class, we could not afford medical care for my father in the United States, and the wait for treatment at a low-cost medical clinic was too long. My father was then advised to seek Chinese medicine as treatment back in Vietnam. He left in May 2003, missing my highly anticipated high school graduation. A month into my first year of college, my father died. Since his death, I have felt an overwhelming guilt about not being able to be there for my father and to help him negotiate the U.S. healthcare system. When my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time, a year after my father's death, I tried my best to be there for her in ways that I could not be for my dad, such as understanding the Medicaid system and taking her to her weekly radiology appointments during my summer break in college.

Twelve years after my mom's first diagnosis, she was battling breast cancer again. This time, I was living in another state, attending graduate school. As a graduate student...