It's not always easy to tell people we love what they mean to us. Read Haibinh's letter to her parents and see how she does it. You might even think about writing your own.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I know we don't have many serious talks, especially those heart-to-heart ones, but now that I am on the verge of being an adult, I feel that you need to know and understand me. During the past nine years that we have been in America, I have grown tremendously, changed from that wide-eyed and scared little girl to a proud and spirited young woman. The transition wasn't always smooth, and I wasn't always patient, but you both were always understanding. And through your understanding I have learned.

I learned from you, Dad, you who get out of bed late at night and into the snow to pick me up from Jeremy's house after sessions of European History. I learned from you, you who wake up every morning to go to the steel plant, where people don't speak your language and you don't speak theirs. I know that if you were in Vietnam, you would be comfortably surrounded by friends and secured in the family business. But you are here in America, doing what you don't like, and through that, you are teaching your children the power of persistence. I have learned to be determined and self-motivated because you are steadfast in expressing your perpetuating dream of getting your children to college. And here I am getting ready for college.

I learned from you, Mom, who cook sensational Vietnamese sour soup and fish, who wait up at nights for your daughters, and who make those same girls listen to Vietnamese songs. When I see you and Dad eating alone at dinner, or you pacing back and forth because your daughters aren't home yet, or you crying because you had Vietnam dreams, then I cry too. I cry because I see so much pain in your eyes, and through your pain I learn the meaning of home, a sanctuary that will care for me unconditionally.

You both have given so much to me and yet, sometimes, I still feel tired and discouraged. There was a void deep inside me yearning for the sense of belonging, the confusion asking exactly where my home is, the loneliness and the exclusion that I felt when those kids talked about their Barbie dolls and GI Joe childhood. I thought I was the only lonely one until I saw you, Dad, staring blankly at your garden and I knew then that you were just as weary. Weary but not discouraged. From when you first set foot on this foreigners' land, you have had to constantly start all over: a new language, a new people, a new set of rules. You both have given up so much of your life to help me create mine. That is the most courage that anyone could teach me.

Through all your sacrifices I learn the essence of being human. I learn to love. I find that this love leads me to you, to home, to the reconciliation that I am Vietnamese-American. The dreams that you have instilled in me slowly begin to take shape as I walk down the college path, creeping into the adult world and venturing out of your world. Wherever I go, I carry my past with me, knowing that you will always be there behind me and I will always come back, because you are where my home is.

With all the love that you have given me,

Haibinh Nguyen