Three-month-old Livia does not have a Chinese name, nor does she have her father’s name, Li, or her mother’s, which is Liu. And her 4-year-old brother is now nicknamed Jimmy. Livia’s father does not want his baby girl to be associated with the Lis or to follow the path that he has lived. To him, Livia, who is the only member of the family born on U.S. soil and therefore its only U.S. citizen, represents a fresh start in the family’s adopted country.
In so many ways, the Li family’s story reflects the American immigrant story: setting eyes on a new horizon while filled with hopes and dreams for a better future, willingly embracing the risk and hardship that the journey will most certainly deliver. The Lis arrived last year, months before Donald Trump won his reelection. For now, even amid anti-immigrant sentiment and the administration’s brutal crackdown on newcomers, the Lis remain laser-focused on building their new life in New York.
The family’s last name is very common in the Chinese community, while the first names of individual members have been withheld at the family’s request to protect their identities as they go through the immigration process.
Originally from Jiangsu, an eastern province of China, Li, 30, and Liu, 29, had a stable life with their son, who was still a toddler when they decided to emigrate to the U.S.
Liu fondly described the smell of soil after heavy rain and the scent of spring in her hometown. She recalled how she used to take her son on her motorbike, sometimes just to ride around, sometimes to purchase food.
But Li felt stifled, unable to speak freely about the government or society. His friends did not understand him, joking that they would have reported him if they had not known him since childhood.
Then he was arrested and accused of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” As evidence of his crime, the police held a stack of A4 papers — documents showing how he had circumvented a government-imposed firewall to criticize the Chinese Communist Party. He was detained for around 10 days.
It was early 2020, and a confluence of worries — especially about his grandmother, who had passed away seven days earlier — was on his mind. In Chinese tradition, the seventh day after death is called “Tou qi,” when it is believed that the spirit returns home. Li called his family members to burn joss paper for his grandmother, a ritual meant to bring her home, but they could not gather together because the roads were blocked due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That night, during detention, Li dreamed of his grandmother. She looked lost, he recalled. So he brought her home in the dream.
After he was released, he began hatching a plan to take his young family to the United States. He found a popular route online: the Darien Gap, a 60-mile stretch of nearly impenetrable rainforest terrain between Panama and Colombia that many migrants have been traversing to enter the U.S. in recent years.
For the first time, Li thought seriously about emigrating and felt that the American dream was within his reach. It would be an arduous journey, but worth it for the better life that he dreamed of for his family.
In early 2024, the family embarked on the first leg of the journey, flying from China to Thailand. From there, the three flew to Turkey, then Egypt and, eventually, Colombia, landing in the town of Pasto before continuing north to Necocli. It was there that they began to prepare for the most dangerous and demanding part of the journey: crossing the Darien Gap, which consists of swamps, mountains and dense rainforest. At its height, the crossing saw more than 1,000 migrants a day attempting the journey by foot, though this year that number has fallen to the double digits, according to the Panamanian authorities.
They spent the weeks that followed riding on boats and buses and walking to get across the terrain before they finally made it to Tijuana, the Mexican town bordering the state of California.
Along the way, the roads were slippery, and the rainforest was terrifying. As they lost stamina in the rainforest, all they had to eat was chocolate, and all they had to drink was water collected from forest springs.
They crossed the border into the U.S. sometime in May 2024. According to Li, border officials were already present when they reached the border, so the family turned themselves in and requested asylum. They were released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody within a day, and then flew to New York. They are waiting for a date for a court hearing for their asylum case.
New York-based human rights activist Wan Yanhai explained to New Lines that because newly arrived immigrants usually work such long hours, “they no longer have the energy to worry about whether ICE will arrest them.” Also, many immigrants, especially those seeking freedoms they never had back home, believe that the U.S. observes the rule of law, protecting civil liberties and democratic ideals.
For Li’s family, much of the focus has been on rebuilding their lives. Along the way, the Lis had to discard almost all their belongings, carrying only the bare necessities for Jimmy. The difficulties of the journey, from China to the U.S., were greater than they had imagined. Liu described how Jimmy grew thin and pale during the three-month journey, though the young toddler never complained, simply following his parents wherever they went.
Liu felt it was a pity they couldn’t bring the items they cherished most — like the baby carrier that Li had used to carry Jimmy, which had left scrapes on his shoulders. It was too heavy to carry amid the exhaustion and demands of the journey, so Li reluctantly left it behind in Mexico, handing it to a local resident and telling them it was still usable.
“We basically handed over our lives during the journey,” Liu told New Lines. But Liu was at least able to carry two physical identity cards of her grandparents for sentimental reasons, carefully tucked inside a plastic bag. Li didn’t bring anything specific with him, only the dream of a new life for himself and his family.
One pivotal scene from the movie “The Legend of 1900,” which Li said he watched twice back home years ago, had always stayed with him: a group of immigrants on a ship, gazing up at the Statue of Liberty, pointing and shouting, “America.”
Like most newly arrived immigrant families, finding housing has been a challenge for the Lis. Unable to afford their own, the young family has sought shared housing arrangements found through word of mouth within the Chinese-American community in New York City. But this has left it exposed to the whims and mercy of unregulated landlords who often discriminate against the family because of the two small children, considered “too noisy.” After moving from one basement to another, the four of them have now settled in Flushing, New York. Their current basement apartment costs $1,500 a month, has only a small window and is often cold. The landlord does not allow them to use the heater, so Li is now searching for a new place to live.
Work has also been a major struggle. It took Li months of searching before he finally landed a job as a delivery driver, earning around $200 a day and working six to seven days a week. The family rarely has time to spend together.
Likewise, Liu, who gave birth in January, is busy caring for Jimmy and Livia, sending Jimmy to school and soothing Livia, who constantly wants her mother nearby.
Each day starts at 8 a.m. The parents begin with their own chores. Li heads to work, while Liu takes care of the children. As a delivery driver, Li has to finish his package deliveries by 6 p.m., the time set by his boss, rushing from place to place to meet the deadline. Li barely has time to eat or drink during his shifts. So Liu often makes him a rice roll he can eat in the van.
Their routines follow separate paths, yet intersect throughout the day. Liu usually has lunch ready for herself and the children by noon. In the afternoon, Liu comforts Livia in the bedroom, soothing her to sleep.
“Life would be torturous if you are not here for freedom and human rights,” Li said.
Jimmy, like his younger sister, probably has only a faint idea of what they have endured. But he does remember flying on planes. The food on the plane was not delicious, he recalls, though other details are lost on him.
He often runs around the cramped basement with his toy gun. Even when scolded, he quickly breaks into a grin. Livia, lying in her bouncer, smiles whenever anyone talks to her.
Li sometimes says that Livia is the only American in the family. But to her parents, she, like Jimmy, is much more than that: Both are their hope, their dream and their motivation.
Looking back, Liu recalls realizing she was pregnant only after a physical checkup in Los Angeles, where ICE processed them. Worried yet surprised, she recalled the family enduring an arduous journey, with hours of walking and barely enough food to eat.
Yet the baby survived. “She was still in my womb, without miscarriage. It is a miracle,” she said.
Asked if they had a plan B, in case the country they want to call home does not grant their request for asylum, they sounded unwavering. “If we have no choice and are forced to leave one day, we’ll go to any other democratic country, but not China,” Li said.
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