Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2021

API Student Writing Contest Winners

Brandon Dela Cruz '22

A single sneeze or cough during these circumstances can strike fear in the ones around you. This is especially true for Asian Americans due to a vast majority believing in a false narrative that all Asians have the coronavirus. Consequently, with the extreme spread of the pandemic, Asian Americans have suffered immensely with anti-Asian xenophobia becoming ubiquitous. It is disheartening to see how these xenophobic expressions have not only accelerated but also revitalized due to the origin of the virus being from China. From the previous President labeling the virus as the “Chinese virus” to the blaming of the Chinese government for being unable to contain the pandemic in a globalized world. These incidents have incited much ridicule, and as a result, Asian Americans across the nation such as myself are not only suffering from xenophobic views but also the subversion of our unique cultures due to us being placed under the umbrella of “Asian” even though my adversities as a Filipino American are exclusive to me and my people. What does your identity mean to you? Because what my identity means to me is to be proud of my beginnings. If we look to these origins we can see the historical adversities of my ancestors being plagued with constant colonization from the Spanish in 1521 and the United States in 1898. This colonization undoubtedly shaped the people of the Philippines, and it is apparent that my history is far different due to other Asian cultures never experiencing the colonial mentality. This was just one adversity that my ancestors had overcome and they should not be undermined just because the dominant powers label us in an ahistorical grouping. With a step outside or a click on the internet, identities are lost and instead are replaced with an inaccurate representation of being dubbed simply as Asian. In essence, we are wrongfully being defined by the dominant society. This lens of viewing the world through a prism of permanent racial categories is not new; however, the coronavirus has incited many to view these radically different groups as such. By placing one under the umbrella of “Asian” it is easy to scapegoat due to that label encompassing so many ethnicities. Although sharing some prejudices, the Asian American communities are vastly different from one another, and it is unfortunate that this hegemonic ideology is being perpetuated. This has caused many to weaponize their personal hatred into outwardly xenophobic actions, causing many Asian Americans to fear for their lives. Ultimately, with coronavirus accelerating anti-Asian xenophobia, the homogenous umbrella that overshadows my identity as a Filipino American undoubtedly neglects the adversities that I and many other ethnic groups face when achieving our successes. Our diverse cultures should never be generalized nor forgotten because these experiences are what makes each culture unique, and with the fear the coronavirus has placed on Asian Americans, there will be more difficulties for many subgroups to tell their story and identity.

Sophia Nguyen '22

“Daddy, can you tell me that pirate story again?” “Maybe later honey, I told you yesterday and the day before that—aren’t you getting tired of hearing the same story?” “Never! I love it when you tell me it over and over.” “Tomorrow honey. Tomorrow.”

There is a small town, village, or city, whatever the ‘West’ would like to call it—where my Grandma and Grandpa are from. Where my mother and father are from. Places that to me, are unpronounceable. Places that summoned my face to make a scrunchy confused look towards my grandpa when he would try and tell my family history to me as a child. As a confused Vietnamese-American child. Refusing to acknowledge the presence of important holiday events such as Tet, a celebration of the new year. A celebration of family. My mother quietly whispering instructions in my ear in front of our family mantle,—the one that sits at the center of the house, caked with family photos of great-grandmas and great-grandpas, strewn with different ornamental fruits. Large oranges, unripe pears, and ripened mangoes sit decoratively atop this strong, wooden mantle that is the center-piece of my house. The centerpiece that I’ve always been taught to revere. I’ve always thought it was strange.—with all of my ancestors staring me down at me. At least that’s what it feels like. Or it’s me begrudgingly looking at them, for not understanding why I have to bend down four times on a green mat and chant things that I didn’t truly mean. I felt bad for thinking these things. What else can you feel if you don’t truly know? As this confused child grew up, she began to learn the nuances of being a culturally enriched person in a place that is so drenched in the non-complexities of caring about one’s culture. She began to understand that having a ‘culture’ is having family. She began to not cringe at her parents when they would always refer to her by the middle name that was always unwanted. A middle name that always summoned up scrunchy faces by those who don’t understand. She learned to accept.

Coming undone
The pirate threw off his glasses and it smacked the floor. Shattering it to pieces. He looked at the woman standing next to him, shivering. He wanted to help her. But how? He reached out his arm and gave her a slight, reassuring caress. But it was he who needed that the most. Those glasses were his lifeline. His sight. Without it how can he continue this journey by himself? His cousin, arrested at the beginning of their journey unable to continue on. The two of them sent off in the middle of the night, desperately alone, desperately awaiting their fate which lay in the hands of tired sailors, risking their lives for the same gamble. He never came to know the name of this poor woman. And neither did she, him. But motionless they remained until the pirates were far out of reach from the dangers of their minds. Until they faded away into a deep, deep memory.—Those weren’t questions he was bothering himself with though—instead, anger coursed through his wrists enough to make a fist. It wanted to take action. The action failed to take place when he stood there caressing this unknown woman. I sit there in awe of my dad. Wide-eyed. “Were you scared dad?” “You can’t be. They were hitting people right in front of me. This pirate knocked off my glasses, I couldn’t see anything. It was terrible. I thought they were going to rape some of the women and then throw off some men overboard, but luckily they didn’t. I just remember finding some safe place lower on the boat and stayed there until things passed, with a boy not much older than me. Just as scared. Just as lonely.

Namelessness.
There is a sense of namelessness that comes with oral history. It comes with my grandma. Her skin, soft, freckled with sun spots, and oil burns from her time as a food truck cook. Construction workers would come flooding in to the smell of eggs, bacon, and ham. Like clockwork.

It's a running joke in my family to laugh at how my grandpa mistook the word ‘bacon’ and confusingly coined it: “bà con” meaning three children in Vietnamese. Wheezing chuckles verberated from my grandparents whenever they tell this story of how he one day asked my grandmother why on earth she ordered ‘three children’ to serve as a breakfast item. Starting right at 4 o’clock in the morning, the wheels would lurch, the parking in brake, and my grandmother on the high-heated stove with my grandpa yelling, “Faster! They’re hungry! Don’t forget the toast!” Splashes of oil would ascend from the fast, rapid whipping of the pan and land onto my grandmother’s delicate skin. Now stained with a small circle. Her olive complexion, complimented well with her dark, raven hair that sprung up in curls whenever she would get it freshly permed down in San Jose. My mother drove almost over an hour every two weeks to see this gay Vietnamese hairstylist that honestly could do my mother and my grandmother’s’s hair better than anybody in the Bay Area, so naturally, they went to see him as often as they could. And that required me being there too. Hot, stuffy, warm. The used black Lexus hummed down the 101 freeway heading South. South. Where Vietnamese people dominate the population. At least where my family goes. I sit listening to my mother scroll through the radio stations hoping to find a good song that keeps her awake. She lands on 94.9 usually. My grandmother in the passenger seat, soaking in the sun. Making her olive complexion turn kalamata olives into a joke. I swivel on the shiny, black hairdresser chairs, newly scented with chemicals as the last customers just had their hair done. What look will my mother get today? Another dye-job? My unevenly cut bangs hang funnily over my face as the hairstylist pronounces in uneven English to my mother: “I cut her hair very pretty for you! She can have the ends shorter. Very good. I can do that and she can wait until we finish up with you today.” I swivel once more, hoping to elude their looks and attention on me. My mother looks up, flipping the page of her latest magazine in hand,“Mai-Anh do you want it?” A tight face and a scrunched up look at my mother do the trick. I veer towards the aromatic mexican food next door, hoping to get something more interesting than a couple of Vietnamese people talking about how my mother doesn’t need a dye-job as often as she gets one. I chose mexican. Fajita bowl in hand, piping hot as I carry it back towards the salon. I face the chemical smell once again.

“How’d you learn to make that dad?” “Well being in a refugee camp for seven months teaches you some pretty interesting things about cooking. You start to mix and match certain things and use whatever you have available to you. I didn’t have much when I was there so I had to make use of a strange mix of ingredients that I somehow turned into a meal. Like when I was in college and made soy sauce from scratch—now that’s where it comes from.” “Uh, yeah sure dad. Ha ha your time was really well spent in the refugee camp then.” “Well it worked out pretty well for me since I won that salsa competition from my Mercury News days. I even beat my coworker that was Mexican, even Mexican people were shocked at my salsa making! You should watch me make it sometime and learn something, maybe not hide away like you usually do before me and mom start making food.” “Hey!” I say in an offensive tone. “I do make food with you guys. . .sometimes. But what’d else you learn in that refugee camp? Where was it?” “They put us there when we arrived in Thailand and I remember this priest giving us these names of families that potentially wanted to adopt us. I had my whole family back in Vietnam so it was strange to think of another family in America waiting. The McClung’s saw my photo in a pamphlet and immediately wanted to adopt me. I beat out the friend that I had made there at the camp, beat him out at adoption. Isn’t that weird?

Some of us grew up with stories that hurt. Hurt the mind and the soul. Hurt the young child’s brain when it could not comprehend the horror. The horror done to my people. My family. I’ve heard these stories straight from birth, or so it seems sometimes. Growing up, there was never a time when I could become accustomed to being desensitized to violence. “If I could escape on a boat when I was twelve then you can do f-ing anything! You have it so lucky Mai-Anh. So lucky.” How can you live up to that?

I’ve seen it grow up and walk and live and write and talk. I’ve seen it flourish into a happy, blossoming family on Lois Lane street. I’ve seen it silenced to the depths of my mother’s heart, so deep, so deep it can’t ever be brought out to light. Pain so ferociously vivid and angry unable to rise above the surface of her emotion. Silence now fills the depths of what lies below anguish. It just stays there. Sitting. Waiting. Thinking.

I see it survive into modern day life.

It comes with my grandma, sitting at our dining room table after hours of standing in the kitchen, making my family the daily three course dinners. The aching feet. The soft hands. The tired eyes. Our blue house in San Francisco telling me about the name of her town. The name of her village. What is the name I cannot remember. Those names were left behind with her. Sitting there, in awe, in wonder, of how a person—no, my grandma. My mother. My father. Uncle. Aunt. Cousin. Family friend. Can live through such things? Because it survives. Dumb-founded; dumb-ridden for not writing these stories down. Racing up the first flight of stairs so fast before the garage door would shut. Sweat dripping from the afternoon sun, whipping off my backpack towards the double-closet door. I ask my grandmother what there is to eat.

“Con thích bà nội nấu mọi thứ cho con, ah?”
“Yes Ba Noi, I always enjoy your cooking more than anything in the world!”

The story of her mother was the bedrock of what having a different family felt like. Different. Feeling different. Having difference. Different than anything I’ve ever heard from anybody I’d ever met. Fascination, excitement. Six years old and already wiped away from her mother, the goodbye never preceding them. The timeline, the year, the date, when? When could this have been? Her childhood, rotten with spoilings and good natured folk around her. Spoiled child she was, but spoiled child she grew up not to be. At least not without her mother. “The communist party, dad? I don’t understand who would do this back then. It couldn’t have even been that long ago. Or was it the Viet Cong?” The soiled childhood she experienced without a mother. A mother that left to get food for her children. A mother that had status and wealth. But received a death worse than death itself. Left her abandoned without a sense of who she was or where she belonged. Who did it? Their names? Memory, as time goes on, naturally replaces these stories with new ones. With laughter, pain, sadness—reality. But this shit sticks. It stuck.

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Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2021