This guest post was submitted by Veronica Li.
On the eve of Mother’s Day, I’d like to say a few words to commemorate my mother.
I wrote a book about her life called JOURNEY ACROSS THE FOUR SEAS. I had always thought of her as just “mom,” but after I recorded her stories and wove them into a memoir, I realized what a wonderful life my ordinary mom had led. She was one of the first Chinese women to go to college. (Before her, Chinese women
had to stay home because they had bound feet!) She survived two wars and tuberculosis, raised five children and brought the family to the U.S. to pursue the American dream.
What she did wasn’t just for the family. She paved the way for all women. In spite of her degree in economics, job opportunities for women were limited in her days. For many years, my mom did the backbreaking work of a keypunch operator. But the wave she started has kept on moving forward. Today there’s no limit to what a woman can do. We should pause to thank our mothers for laying the groundwork.