After hearing a lot of buzz around the film CODA during awards season, I finally watched it last night.

The Oscars Best Picture winner did not disappoint. I’ve heard the critics and the naysayers, but sometimes, I just want to watch a well-thought-out, feel-good movie. And this was it. It was a historic win, yes, with almost half (40%) of the movie in American Sign Language (ASL) with most of the lead characters actually being played by deaf actors.

I appreciated the themes of what it means to be a family and as an outsider as members of the deaf community. But throughout the movie, which portrayed the life of a CODA (child of deaf adults), I was surprised to see parallels between this deaf family to families of first-generation immigrants. The community may see the deaf family as unrelatable or people who are ‘in need’ when actually they can be like any other family down the street—same way as some may see immigrant families in their neighborhoods.

I saw parallels in the experiences by a CODA and the experiences of children of immigrant parents—the reliance on the child, the burden felt by child, and the responsibilities and sacrifices pressed on child. The director, Sian Heder, also recognized these parallels as she grew up under Hungarian and Welsh parents in the US.