Modern Families

My mother always says, “When you marry someone, you marry their family, so pick who you’re dating well.”

It is something she has repeated for years, part warning, part wisdom. When I was little, I did not fully understand it, but it stayed with me. I remembered it again in second grade when my math teacher, a Christian man, stopped class after one of my classmates said he had a girlfriend. He told us that dating was meant to prepare you for marriage, and that if you were dating someone without that intention, you were wasting their time.

At the time, I was seven. None of us knew what he meant, but I think I understand it now. It was not only about marriage, but about intention. About realizing that the people we bring into our lives connect us to entire families, histories, and worlds beyond our own.

In 2022, I met my partner, Joshua Sumin Baek.

He was born in Incheon, South Korea, and grew up in River Edge, New Jersey. I was born and raised in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. We met in New Haven, Connecticut, a place that somehow holds both of our stories. We are both immigrants, but our experiences differ. Joshua’s family lives in New Jersey. Mine does not. When he goes home, he walks through his parents’ door. When I go home, I open WhatsApp.

If Joshua and I ever get married, as my mother says, it would mean uniting two families who have never been in the same room, families who might only ever meet on a screen. His parents would meet my family through a laptop. My grandmother would greet his family from thousands of miles away. What used to be physical rituals like shaking hands, sharing meals, and exchanging stories are now digital gestures.

Immigration, distance, and technology have changed the way families exist. The word “together” no longer always means being in the same place. Many families today live across countries, connected through video calls, voice notes, and photos sent in group chats. For many of us, love has become something that travels through screens and survives through effort. It is no less real. It is just built differently.