Unfinished Business

Breaking Down the Great Wall between Adult Child and Immigrant Parents

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About Unfinished Business

If you've ever yearned for your parents' approval, felt the weight of their high expectations, or experienced the burden of unspoken obligations to care for them as they age, you're not alone.

Too often, we hesitate to ask our parents about their lives, held back by mistaken beliefs or past conflicts. With warmth, wit, and vulnerability Amy Yip explores the profound influence her parents had on her life and offers you a roadmap to navigate conversations with your own parents.

In Unfinished Business, Amy takes us on a heartfelt journey from detachment to deep connection with her own parents as she delves into the stories she holds about them; from “My success will never be good enough for my parents” to “I must be mentally tough and never ask for help” and everything in between. She illuminates the power of conversation as she invites us to see the world through her and your parents’ eyes. By engaging in meaningful dialogues and taking the time to truly understand their experiences and struggles, we discover that our parents are not just figures from our past, but complex individuals with their own hopes, dreams, and fears.

Each chapter provides a framework of self-reflective prompts, practical tips, and thought-provoking questions to ask your parents, empowering you to embark on your own journey of connection. Because, regardless of the generation we belong to, we all long to be heard and understood. And that includes our parents.

Join Amy on this poignant exploration of family, identity, and the power of conversation. It’s time to embrace the unfinished business, unravel the untold stories, and forge a deeper bond with the ones who shaped us.

This is not and was never going to be easy. But it can get easier.

"This is the book I wish I had when I was younger. It is the book I needed while struggling to straddle two worlds, American culture and that of my parents - Vietnamese refugees who escaped into the United States with only the clothing on their backs. This book is for anyone who wants to heal intergenerational trauma through kindness, conversations, and practical exercises. In Unfinished Business, Amy tells her story of finding her way home by examining her relationship with her parents. In doing so, she tells many of our stories with warmth and vulnerability, shining a light on the tenuous but beautiful of the parent-child relationship."

“I couldn’t put the book down. Amy’s stories are honest, funny, and relatable. What a gift this book is for anybody who wants to heal themselves or their relationship with their parents.”

“The heartfelt insight from Amy’s journey delivers hope, laughter, and a few tears. Her bravery in exploring her inner dialogue of being raised in one culture and being born into another eases the path in a dark tunnel so familiar to kids of immigrants. But the proverbial light is here! While there are never hard fast answers to each person’s story, Amy does an extraordinary job by sharing her own path, helping us create space for ourselves to ask powerful questions so we too can repair and rebuild bridges with our parents and create even stronger ones with our children.”

“Amy Yip has written something incredibly unique, powerful, and transformational. ‘Unfinished Business’ is a story of intergenerational trauma, gifts, love and healing the likes of which I have never seen, and it's laid out in intimate detail. I am in awe of what Amy and her parents have brought together via their challenging and both heartbreaking and heartwarming conversations.”

“‘Relationships are hard and relationships with parents are REALLY hard’. lf you've got parents and can relate to this quote then get ready for a menagerie of stories that will make you laugh and contemplate how you learned to love. We are all immigrants/foreigners in learning to love our parents and Amy provides insight and practical steps to see how actions often speak louder than words.”

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Reading Unfinished Business with a Group?

Get your copy of the Unfinished Business Book Discussion Guide!

Whether you’re reading with fellow friends, a book club, or a community group, this guide will help you spark conversations and support each other as you explore your own relationship with your parents and deepen your understanding of self and the complex dynamics between adult child and immigrant parents.