The garden geranium perches undisturbed on my family’s home windowsill. Each day, a member of my family draws open four wooden blinds to flood our living room with the warmth of direct sunlight. Full sun exposure allowed the geraniums to flourish for almost two decades.  

After interviewing my mother (Lisa) over the phone about our geraniums, I recalled many of her oral stories about her childhood that were told over our dining room table. The blossoms of the vibrant red geraniums were my late grandmother’s favorite flower to admire. My brother and I called her “Popo,” which translates to maternal grandmother in Cantonese. She was a caring, hardworking, and sensible woman. Popo instilled values of education—including the importance of learning English—within her three children, Karen, Victor, and Lisa. By completing schoolwork or watching television, the children experienced the cultural values of America. 

I pieced together dates and timelines. In the winter of 1983, my mother was eight years old when she immigrated to the United States from the Guangdong Province of China. My mother shared one of her childhood American sitcoms with me on our phone call. Small Wonder, a series that comically features a human-like robot disguised as a family’s adopted daughter, aired from September 1985 to May 1989. 

Many of the details in my mother’s personal accounts about Popo’s long working hours at clothing and garment factories in New York City’s Chinatown parallel the muckraking in the New York Times Archives. Popo’s sweatshop experience of cutting, sewing, and stitching clothing is similar to the sweatshop conditions detailed in William Serrin’s “After Years of Decline, Sweatshops are Back.” I could imagine her hunched over large and dangerous sewing machines that threatened to pierce her nimble fingers. Garment workers were not given a sustainable hourly or yearly salary; instead, “wages in a Chinatown shop are 50 cents for a [completed] skirt and 50 cents for a [completed] jacket” (Serrin). Popo faced pressure to meet a high garment quota to earn a sufficient paycheck that covered the family’s necessities—rent, groceries, and clothing. The merger and hard-earned wages from the Chinatown sweatshops were not enough to support a family of five. Popo, Gunggung (my grandfather), Dai Ye (my aunt), Cow Fu (my uncle), and my mother resided in a small apartment. Purchasing a potted houseplant for indoor atmosphere and aesthetics was an unaffordable expense.  

Whenever I saw my grandmother as a child, before she passed away from cancer in 2011, she was long retired from working grueling hours at the clothing shops. During Popo’s retirement, she had the luxury of time to pursue a new passion. Under the open sky and comforting rays of sunshine, the whole motion of gardening for Popo was rejuvenating. My cousins and aunt savored the fruits of her labor at their dining room table. For five years, Popo resided in Dai Ye’s home to take care of my four cousins. As a grandmother, she tended a thriving vegetable garden of bell peppers, amaranth greens (“Yin Choy”), and bitter melon. Although the geraniums sitting indoors did not bear fruit, the flowers were special. Popo enjoyed tending to the plant because the geraniums were durable and required minimal maintenance. The presence of red flowers in Chinese culture symbolizes “longevity of life,” but Popo treasures the geraniums because the flowers represent her family’s persistence through hardship (Yelang). I could picture Popo’s proud and serene smile that lifted the corners of her eyes while watering the red geraniums. The red flowers outlived my grandmother’s lifetime and can be found throughout my family’s home. 

In 2004, my family moved into our house in Flushing, Queens. Without any houseplants or meaningful objects, our abode full of scattered cardboard boxes felt impersonal. Popo wished to help my parents begin the next chapter of their story, and she still lived at Dai Ye’s home—which was a quick five-minute drive away. From a geranium planted in my aunt’s outdoor garden, Popo snipped off a sturdy green branch that sprouted healthy and full leaves. She gave the branch as a housewarming gift to my parents. 

Geraniums can propagate after being cut from their stem. The single geranium branch has blossomed into several bundles of flowers. Today, they continue to thrive despite having an average lifespan of two years. Popo’s love for nature and her green thumb were passed down to my mother. There are many pots full of red geraniums scattered along the windowsill that now welcome house guests. Outside of our home, our front yard is a living and growing collection of peppers, strawberries, roses, sunflowers, and succulents.  

The medium-green leaves, knobby-thick trunk, and vermillion-red flowers all grew from Popo’s original geranium branch. Our red garden geranium is a cherished possession that holds a remnant of Popo and a continuing family narrative of tenacity and resilience.

Works Cited 

Liu, Lisa. Interview. 2023. 

Serrin, William. “After Years of Decline, Sweatshops Are Back.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12 Oct. 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/12/nyregion/after-years-of-decline-sweatshops-are-back.html. 

Yelang. “Meaning of Flowers in Chinese Culture（12 Types).” Son Of China, 12 Oct. 2022, https://sonofchina.com/meaning-of-flowers-in-chinese-culture/.