The Story of Ah Xim
Born in April 1957 in Taishan City located in Guangdong Province, China, Ah Xim is the eldest of three children. While her parents were farmers, Ah Xim finished high school in 1974, the year the Cultural Revolution ended. From 1966 to 1970, all of China’s colleges were shutdown. Even when Ah Xim graduated four years later, there were still no means of applying to college and she reluctantly returned home to farm alongside her parents. When examinations finally reopened in 1977, she took it and was accepted into the nursing school in Foshan. She graduated in 1981 and became a nurse at Foshan Area Hospital in Guangdong.
During one visit to her parents in Taishan in 1983, Ah Xim’s relatives introduced her to her future husband who had returned home from serving in the army. After a year of courtship, at age 27, Ah Xim moved back to Taishan and worked as a nurse in Taishan Hospital. Her husband worked as a clerk at the Department of Transportation. That same year, in 1985, she gave birth to their daughter, an only child. Life was simple - they worked and cared for their daughter. With two incomes, their lives were stable.
Taishan is the ancestral homeland of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese in North America. In 2000, Ah Xim’s family of three immigrated to the United States through sponsorship by her mother, who had immigrated in 1992 to reunite with family. Her mother was a strong willed woman who had the singular determination to bring her family to the United States for a better life. Already in her sixties, Ah Xim’s mother humbly worked whatever manual labor jobs available to her through extended family and acquaintances.
When Ah Xim arrived in New York City in 2000, she was already in her 40’s. Garment factories were already disappearing from Chinatown and moving to other developing countries. When she read in the newspaper that a homecare agency named Ka Wah was hiring, Ah Xim applied immediately. Ka Wah was not unionized and the starting wage was just a little over $5 an hour. After three months of probation, Ah Xim earned about $6 an hour. In 2004, Ah Xim registered to work in the homecare program operated by the Chinese American Planning Council (CPC). She switched over in 2005 when she had enough assignments at CPC to quit Ka Wah. CPC paid her between $8 to $9 per hour, plus pension and health benefits. Ah Xim worked everywhere in New York City, from private houses to public housing.
During Ah Xim’s career as a homecare attendant, she worked for about two weeks in 24-hour shifts where she worked four days straight at a client’s home, and then returned home for three days. Sleep-deprived, she declined any more 24-hour shifts. For those 24-hour days that she worked, she was not paid 24 hours per day but instead, only 13 hours per day!
To supplement her income, in 2016, Ah Xim started collecting cans in her neighborhood of the Lower East Side on her days off and between assignments. Her canner friends advised her on where the redemption machines are in the neighborhood.
In 2019, when Ah Xim turned 62, she decided to retire because she was afraid to lose her home in public housing. She and her husband had won a public housing lottery in 2010 and had since moved from Brooklyn to the Lower East Side where they could be close to Chinatown. The reality was that despite working all the time, she and her husband still found themselves making ends meet and would not be able to afford market rent were they to lose their public housing. Furthermore, after years of working in homecare, her hands and legs were hurting. Even though she continued canning, she has the freedom to choose when and where to work.
When asked whether she is happier in the United States, Ah Xim said China is better because she doesn’t speak English. She came to New York City mainly to reunite with family and to ensure better opportunities for her daughter. She dreams of traveling but that seems most possible only in China. China has changed a lot since she left. In the end, home is where her family is. Her pension and social security payments, however meager, is allowing her to age in place - close to those she loves.
