The dark side of the immigrant hustle

Plus 10 smaller ways to create space for rest in your life. Join me?

• Don’t forget book club in June during the last week (specific date and time will be announced soon!)! We are going to be discussing Drinking from Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu.

• Our lovely Avani Patel is going to be leaving us at the end of May to focus on her own initiatives. Let’s make tomorrow May 20 conversation club a celebration in her honor (I’ll be there, too!). P.S. If you reached out about running conversation clubs as a therapist, stay tuned! Emails are going out next week to start planning for this!

• The giveaway is being extended! Leave a review on Apple and a comment on Spotify and enter to win a FULL year of a paid subscription to this community! (Details here)

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Last week we discussed narcissism in immigrant families, if you missed it, you can check out the full podcast here, the bonus episode with some more information here, and see a series of IG posts that can help.

Since it’s mental health awareness month, I want to write three more essays this month on an aspect of mental health that is particularly salient in our community:

• May 19: The dark side of the immigrant hustle

• May 28: Cultural gaslighting: When is duty a sign of love, and when is it a tool for control?

• May 31: Culturally relevant ways to becoming soft like our ancestors weren’t allowed to be (plus May resources and recommendations)

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I want to be vulnerable with you all...

Last week, I shared that I was struggling, and you were all so kind and sweet. I have been working in my own therapy for awhile on how my self-worth is inherently tied to my productivity. I’ll share more about my personal experience behind the paywall but the idea of “hustling” has become my default setting. In my mind, the more I work, the more I prove my worth — not just to the world, but to myself. My own immigrant parents built a life from scratch, pushing through every challenge with a relentless drive. It was hard to separate their sacrifice from my own desire to succeed.

The “Immigrant Hustle” is something many of us are familiar with. It’s often romanticized — a symbol of grit and determination. Immigrants work multiple jobs, build businesses from the ground up, and navigate countless obstacles to create a better life for their families. It’s viewed as the ultimate display of sacrifice and love. And let’s be real, it’s exacerbated by capitalism and white supremacist frameworks.

For immigrant families, hustle isn’t just about ambition — it’s survival. It’s rooted in displacement, poverty, and the struggle to make it in a world that wasn’t built for us. Immigrants often enter countries with limited resources, legal barriers, and cultural differences, making hustle the only option to survive. It's the means by which our families build a new life in a new world, making it through uncertainty, trauma, and a lack of resources. But behind this “resilience” lies a deeper, often overlooked cost: emotional and physical burnout, invisible trauma, and the belief that we must constantly push forward without rest.

For many immigrant families, there is no “other choice.” The pressure to be productive, to build a new life, and to repay the sacrifices made by previous generations is immense. And because we don't always have the safety nets others might, the hustle becomes both a necessity and a badge of honor. It’s a way to show that we belong, that we can thrive despite all the odds. After all, my own parents came to this country having to show their worth to the economy.

This hustle becomes the narrative that keeps us moving forward. It’s one we have all internalized at some point (and like me, many of you may still be struggling to unlearn it). But after years of working without rest, I’m realizing that resilience isn’t just about pushing through; it’s about knowing when to stop, rest, and reclaim our well-being.

It’s time we start valuing rest and emotional health as much as we value hard work.

I’ll be honest: Rest feels like a luxury I don’t deserve. Even when I’m exhausted, there’s a voice in my head that tells me to keep going, to keep working, to keep pushing. This idea that ‘rest is for the weak’ is so deeply ingrained in me, I didn’t even realize how much it was affecting my mental health. I’ve spent so many years associating rest with failure, that it took a toll on my body, mind, and soul. Now, I’m learning that rest is actually a revolutionary act of self-care. Slowly, but surely, I am learning this.

I’m curious: how does this resonate with you? Do you feel the weight of your parents’ hustle in your own life? How are you learning to reclaim your own ease? Let’s share our stories.

The myth of resilience

When we say “immigrants are resilient,” it’s meant as a compliment — a nod to our family’s strength in the face of adversity. But what if resilience isn’t always a sign of strength? What if it’s a sign of necessity? Resilience, for many immigrants, is not a choice; it’s the only path to survival. When we repeatedly say “immigrants are resilient,” we often overlook the mental, emotional, and physical toll that this constant pushing takes. We deny the systemic oppression and inequities that force people to be resilient. It’s easy to celebrate resilience as a virtue, but what if the true cost of resilience is exhaustion, burnout, and disconnection?

We’ve inherited resilience, but at what cost? Why are we still living in survival mode when many of us don’t have to? What was our elders’ resilience for if the cycle is being perpetuated?

Resilience shouldn’t come at the expense of our well-being. True strength isn’t in the endless hustle — it’s knowing when to pause, when to seek support, and when to honor our limits.

Unlearning resilience doesn't mean becoming fragile or to stop working hard — it means moving from survival mode to sustainable living, from self-denial to self-trust, and from performing strength to embodying wholeness.

• Resilience can mask harm and teaches many of us to suppress emotions and vulnerability, avoid asking for help, normalize burnout and overwork

• Hyper-independence from “resilience” can cause many of us to equate self-worth with productivity or self-sacrifice. This can look like guilt for resting or saying “no,” feeling undeserving of comfort, ease, or pleasure; and struggling to set boundaries in relationships

• Real healing often requires softness, vulnerability, and the capacity to fall apart.

• Many adult children of immigrants carry a sense of inherited debt — that they must succeed or endure to validate their parents’ sacrifices. Letting go of this survival-based resilience allows them to redefine what a fulfilling, self-determined life looks like.

• If the cycle of unrelenting resilience is not disrupted, it often gets passed down. Unlearning it can model that rest and softness are also forms of strength; that vulnerability and success are not mutually exclusive; that healing is a collective, not just individual, process

Breaking the cycle

The key to breaking the cycle of relentless hustle and redefining resilience is recognizing that rest, emotional health, and well-being are just as important as productivity and success.

Redefining resilience isn’t about rejecting hard work; it’s about realizing that true strength lies in balance. Resilience isn’t about pushing through at all costs. It’s about knowing when to stop, when to ask for help, and when to care for yourself.

We can choose to take breaks without guilt, set healthy boundaries, and prioritize self-care. We can redefine success, not just as what we achieve, but as how we nurture ourselves along the way. Success isn’t about surviving on minimal sleep or emotional exhaustion — it’s about thriving while respecting our limits.

The myth of resilience has served its purpose in helping immigrant families survive. But now, it’s time to shift the narrative. True strength comes from recognizing our limits, nurturing our well-being, and allowing ourselves to rest. Let’s redefine success and strength together — starting with how we take care of ourselves. It’s okay to hustle, but it’s just as important to stop, breathe, and be kind to ourselves.

You don’t have to hustle nonstop to prove your worth. Rest is revolutionary.

3 reflection questions:

• When was the last time you truly rested without guilt?

• How does hustle show up in your life, and what impact has it had on your mental health?

• What does “resilience” mean to you now, and how can you start reimagining it for yourself?

A ‘balance’ exercise: the values/lifestyle pie chart

When I work with clients, I have them do this exercise where they make a pie chart and fill it with how they are spending their time in the past month. And then I have them fill a second one with how they spent their time last year. Then one more for how they want to be filling their time.

This allows for a greater bird’s eye view on if you’ve achieved balance over the course of a year or so (we can’t do everything with balance every single day, but if we can see that we have split our time over a year between things that are important to us then in my eyes, that is balance). This exercise also brings into perspective how you might be neglecting your community and your loved ones. And it allows you to really see where you are tying your sense of self.

This is an example of my current pie chart, and to be honest: I am deeply unhappy with how it looks:

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Keep reading for my own reflections on my relationship with rest

10 tips for creating space for rest in small, digestable ways