Rai Meets His Chinese Great Grandmother

With 20% of San Francisco's population being Chinese-American, it's safe to say that about one in five San Franciscan's have a Chinese Grandmother or Great Grandmother. Rai, here's one of your first math lessons: you can't argue with probability. The odds of having a Chinese matriarch are high enough that you were born likely to have one yourself. And, you do.
Rai, in my first few months with your Mom, I must admit that I was confused a lot of the time. This confusion was the result of hearing, then trying to sort out all the stories about her family. Questions like "How is your brother half Chinese?", "Why do you know so many random words in Cantonese?" and "Why do you have six grandparents?" kept coming up.
Eventually all was cleared up and, in the process, I learned that my simple view of a world with only traditional 2-parent families would not hold if I were to understand the myriad family situations that would be presented to me in San Francisco. Any family type recognized can be found here in The City.
In the end, understanding your Mom's family wasn't so difficult. A previous marriage explained the Chinese brother and the very large Chinese side of the family that she grew up with having Grandma Wu as the matriarch and focal point of that entire clan. Grandma Wu came by for lunch with Peggy, one of her daughter's in law, who has been an important part of your Mom's life and will be part of your's too. Rai, you met your Mom's Grandma Wu, your Great Grandmother Wu, for the first time. With that, you have been welcomed into this branch of our family. In fifteen or twenty years, you too can confuse some friends by telling them all about your Chinese family.
More importantly, as you go into the San Francisco public school system, you no longer have to feel so out of place. With your Chinese side of the family, you'll be just like half your friends! Now, all we have to do is get you a Latino Uncle or Grandpa or other relative and you'll fit in with the other half of the students!