"I am Vietnamese-American" – only, as my dad constantly reaffirms, Vietnamese first.
Like most parents, he has a few key openings to the lectures he gives. One of his favorites goes: "You live under my roof and follow my rules. I am Vietnamese, and so are you. We came to take advantage of the opportunities here, but you are not American, and in Vietnam we don't…" and so on and so forth.
This opening is the one I hate most. I am always angry when he lectures me, but when he brings out this "common wisdom", the rage twists my stomach until, before I know it, I'm throwing a screaming tantrum. The last time he used this excuse to stop me from going to a sleepover, I cried, locked myself in my room for the night, went biking all day, and ignored my phone.
And all for those four words: "You are not American."
Again and again, just when I've forgotten, I am reminded that real Americans share a collective consciousness I am barred from. They know about the tooth fairy, Thanksgiving, long Christmas drives, the cookie monster, Bill Nye the Science Guy. I was only seven when I realized that it took more than American citizenship to be American.
I am, undeniably, Vietnamese.
It was with this belief that I stepped off the Ho Chi Minh airport in 2009. I breathed in the humid air, felt the smog settle on my face, heard the distant clamors of old relatives, and felt nostalgia and relief wash over me as I thought, "I am home."
It was a whirlwind romance. I was whisked away by the cousins I once loved, the house whose smell I remember still, the childhood haunts restored to my memory, the food I sometimes agonizingly crave in the winter nights of Boston. In Vietnam, fake delight, yelps of humor, torrents of swears, and forced conversations did not exist. For awhile, I submerged myself in surroundings where my distinct Asian mentality fitted. For once, I could lean back and be who I was without a sense of shame and isolation.
That is, until one cousin made a flippant remark. I can still see her, sprawled on the marble floor, peeling an orange, saying casually, "You're so lucky to have all those opportunities! But you must be lonely there, right? Do you want to move back here after college? I mean, it's not like you'll marry an American."
The dream was shattered.
My refusal came fast, fervent, and unbidden. The patriotic heart I didn't even know I had flared. I wanted to shout at her that the reason why the Vietnamese don't grow roots in America is because people like my dad are too busy yanking them from the ground, that yes, I'm lonely, but isn't everybody, and no, I will not be moving back, and I'll marry anyone I please, and what does she mean, some of my best friends are "American"; but more than anything, I wanted to cry to her that I am American, and I love America, the harsh land of the disappearing dreams, whose gentle arms nonetheless opened for my seven-year-old self and have engulfed me ever since.
But I caught myself. I made a polite response, but inside I was laughing mockingly at myself, because I finally grasped that I was no more Vietnamese than a chameleon was actually a leaf. I didn't have enough of the American mentality to extinguish my incessant need for it, but I had plenty enough to be chafed by the restrained emotions, the covert sexism, the uniformity. I knew that, and they all soon knew that, no matter the color of my skin and shape of my eyes. Their impression that I was a "native" evaporated as soon as they judged my clothes, the way I walked, the way I met their gaze, the words that came from my mouth. Wherever I accompanied my cousins, people asked if I was visiting from a foreign country.
I could've kneeled on the ground when the airplane landed at Logan airport at last. I could've kissed the charming eccentrics who inhabited Boston to no one's agitation.
I am Vietnamese-American, more American than Vietnamese, but Vietnamese enough to be awkward and discomfited in America. Despite my appearance, my dad's attempts to reform me, my desire for it to be either one or the other, that is what I am and shall always be.