There are photos of my family at church which are older than I am. Looking through the albums, the church book-ends one era to another for my family: my parents in front of the church that sponsored them here, my middle sister’s baptism ceremony, my oldest sister’s confirmation ceremony, my own baptism, marriages of my uncles and aunties. There are even a couple of photos of me dozing off in the pews when I was four that my dad thought would be particularly funny.

Looking at the pattern of images taken of my older sisters and relatives, I watched them grow up as they were documented during their first baptism, eucharist, confirmation, marriage, funerals and the cycle begins again but with their own children.

There are lapses as time passes, however. One nephew wouldn’t have a baptism, another aunt wouldn’t have a marriage. Eventually, examining my own memories in front of me, I realize I don’t have a confirmation memorialized. 

It was no coincidence though; I left the faith a long time ago when I realized I was gay. The contradiction in my parent’s faith and my sexuality was only the cherry of the reason; the bulk of it built up from years of understanding my own sense of existed. I always hated being given instructions.

There were fights. There were long nights and dreadful car rides. Yet I was stubborn and fiercely committed to what I believed was right. I remember my dad telling me he left monastery training as a teenager to be with the woman he loved — my mom — and I’m essentially doing the same. Eventually, they gave up. I haven’t been inside of a church since early high school. 

Though looking through the album again, I see there are less photos of these life events in general (aside from my own) even though I know there are more little nieces and nephews who go through them. Hell, there are less family photos altogether. These eras are lost.

Perhaps they no longer felt it was significant to document every precious moment and the novelty of comfortable luxury of the United States in comparison to their war-torn Vietnam had worn off. New realities were terrifying though exhilarating at first but soon became tomorrow’s drudgery. However, even if it was partially that, I also realized my parents haven’t gone to church in the last four years. When I used to come home for Christmas, they would tell me, “Meet you at Midnight Mass, we are going to go first to get seats and you can catch up” and I would intentionally disappoint their expectations. But now, not even that happens.

I didn’t notice for the longest time. As I’ve gotten older, however, I begun to wonder why they stopped going. I stopped going because I lost my faith and I know why. But I wonder what they lost to make them stop. For once, I felt uneasy about the situation.

Knowing that something they did for over 50+ years, across war, violence, devastation, oceans, continents, jungles, trauma, resettlement, life, and death was suddenly stopped worries me. It must have been something quite catastrophic and lately, I’ve noticed my family crumble apart particle by particle from the inside out. The rooms are cold. The walls echo. Things are dead here. We’re hollow.

I’m starting to see this, and I’m starting to mourn it.

I can’t lie. Looking at the photos, I felt a familiar warmth emanating from them that was long extinguished and its comforting glow reignited what I hadn’t noticed was even missing in the first place. I remember seeing my first Nativity scene and the excitement that came with it, I remember watching my first Lion Dance show and my eagerness whenever January came to an end, I remember sitting in envy as my older sisters got to take part in the Eucharist alongside my parents and awaiting the day I no longer served to save their seats.

How will I hold on to these feelings when they’re gone? When they’re gone, will they be comforted? Or will they thrash through everything in a journey of fear until the very end?

The second scenario terrifies me. The only thing terrifying than experiencing their loss is experiencing their loss without having the warmth that we had in those photos.

Was it my leaving the church that my parents stopped going as well? Or what was it which made them stop?

Sometimes, I begin to think I should believe again, if only for the comforting fact to know that my family will be taken care of with just as much love as they took care of me. Then, perhaps, I could not fear loss as much as I do now.

I never use this word, but damn my parents were swagalicious.

Me: Hey Mom, I’m taking Vietnamese at school right now.

Mom (in viet): LOL REALLY? I’m gonna text you instead of calling you from now on and you have to respond back in Vietnamese.

—

And then she tells me that she’s gonna go to bed smiling tonight.

Hi trung con trai cua me con co khoe khong me beit text roi thinh thoang me text tham con duoc khmong ho ho

My mom’s first text to me. Rough translation: “Hi my darling. Are you well? I just learned how to text. Can I text you sometimes?”

Hi Mom! I am good!! You can text me anytime. I love you!

My response. Rough translation: “Yes. Now I won’t feel bad not picking up your calls during meetings.”

I got so excited when I saw this fifteen minutes ago lol.

edit: ALSO, apparently, my mother translates laughter to “ho ho” rather than “ha ha” which is what I’m used to. Interesting.

wednesdays in grade school were the once a week that i’d go to my best friend’s house. from 2:30 to 4:30, we’d check out the library with her ma who kept us involved inside so that we wouldn’t get involved outside — keepin our hands familiar with the spine of a novel rather than with the spine of an equally empowering but more physically dangerous object. and from 4:30 to 6, i’d come over, we’d sit and watch pbs in the outside room while grandpa watched his cambodian dramas inside. though it was routine, i was always on edge during these times, one eye on the screen while the other was kept on that inside room. i anticipated the moment when i’d have to sit up straighter, tuck my hands in more properly, pay closer attention to the tv, essentially make sure i wasn’t making any wrong movement or noise — i didn’t want to offend grandpa, for my very being would offend him, i had known.

he hated the vietnamese — i was covertly prefaced this information behind closed doors and with hushed voices the first time i came over. so i had to pretend i wasn’t. whenever i entered this household, i became cambodian.

while this was my one of my first acknowledgments of the war as a child, it’s not my encounter with “that war” which i want to write about. rather, it’s the development of my shame of being vietnamese which i want to point out. and, at 8 years old, i believe the question began around there. (though it’s not to say those two discussions are mutually exclusive — it’s just the full answer to the other question deserves a discussion on its own)

it was no overt fault of the family, i feel. it was simply my friend tellin me to heed caution in the event that grandpa ever attempted interaction with me — which he never did. he had experiences of the war which colored his perception of vietnamese people — a lens he, understandably, carried over. in the event he ever asked what my name was, i could never say “trung”, a clearly vietnamese name. rather, i was to borrow a cousin’s name.

the development of shame didn’t end there either. in middle school as my friends began to develop some sort of consciousness of their asian-american identities (though through the misguided but well-meaning “aZn prYdE” culture), the urge to claim and categorize themselves and each other’s ethnic identities were at a height. certain physical features and cultural expressions were valued and identified as being one aspect of asian or another. while i myself was wary of this movement and what it meant, i was nonetheless subjected to it being that it was my social environment.

one particular incident took place during some downtime in class as i sat with my group of aZn pRyDe friends. in this conversation, the question of ethnic identity as expressed through physical features came up. each in turn around the table, we were immediately assigned alternate ethnicities. though we were mostly and in large part vietnamese, some of us were assigned to be more “Chinese”, “Japanese”, or even “White” because of our physical traits and, in some few cases, mixed heritages/upbringings. these alternate badges were carried with pride and even a sense of hierarchy as these alternate badges also carried with them a “westernized” cultural product — music, film, and history in the american textbooks. nobody wanted to be purely vietnamese but at the same time, it was having this alternate badge which made them vietnamese.

though when it came to me, they were stuck. i didn’t look too much like any of the other ones, given my darker complexion, flatter nose, thicker growth of hair. so what did i get? “i don’t know what you are so you can just be ‘other’”

i was denied my own identity — the feeling that my own people didn’t want me, that i didn’t look vietnamese enough and thus wasn’t vietnamese enough. it was ironic that the thing which was meant to be a source of pride was manipulated into a reproduction of shame, and funny that they even used the option that the census used.

so the question now is where am i in terms of my vietnamese identity? truth is, i don’t know. i feel like i’ve traveled such a warped road at such an early age that it’s kinda difficult to figure out where the hell i am now. and when you factor sexuality and college revelations into the question, the situation gets even more messy. interesting how the realization falls right after having marched with the lgbtq contigent in the tet parade in westminister. i’m sure i’ll have more to say on that soon, when i have time to sit down and articulate it out.

what i can say now is that i am proud to be vietnamese-american. but sometimes i wonder if the community can say that they’re proud of me.