Here in Maryland (1)

I don’t have any memories coming into the U.S., just ones supplied gratuitously by my relatives. I never heard them from my parents. Probably because it wasn’t the most pleasant experience for them. After all, we did land in the nation’s capital. I can imagine the shell shock coming into a beautiful city like Washington D.C. From all the Federal buildings to the museums, they were a huge contrast to the dilapidated buildings back in Saigon. Not only that, the people were very different. Hardly any Vietnamese or even Asians on the street. The only ones they saw, we the same ones being bus’d to the immigration building. From what my aunt and uncle repeatably tell me, it was there where I put my parents through a horrible time.

We were all in a large room, a government room. Sterile, yet dusty, it spanned about a fifty square feet, enough to hold over a hundred Vietnamese immigrants waiting to be processed. The chairs were plastic with shiny metal legs, blue seats, curved, possibly to fool people that they were comfortable. My dad sat reading through forms with my brothers tied by mortification from something they shouldn’t have done. My mom stood holding me.

She was bouncing me up and down, trying to get me to stop crying, staring around the room.

There were several things going through her mind. First and foremost, were the people. Everyone was Vietnamese yet she knew no one except for our immediate family. She worked at a U.S. military office back in Saigon. So it wasn’t much of a change seeing foreigners behind the desk. But here, they were citizens and we, we were the foreigners. It really hadn’t sank in completely that she was away in a completely foreign place. That is, until she saw her first African American. A large black lady behind one of the counters and behind her were even more. they stood around talking and laughing in the background. She had seen them on TV but never before in person. Nothing but the common stereotypes ran through her head. The stories of how obnoxious and rude they were in the army. The way they strutted and the way they talked. Jive talked if you learned everything from television. That was all she knew. She stood mesmerized. Still as a deer in headlights. And then, according to my wonderful aunt, I broke her out of her spell. In a loud and smelly way. Like a plug that popped open, I soiled my diaper.

My mom sighed and brought me to the rest room. She changed me and came back out.

Typical mom thing right? Nothing out of the ordinary. Well, I should mention this story had become family folk lore and brought up many times, especially when I get a stomach ache and have to hit the can while either my aunt or uncle are in the vicinity.

I’d always get a laugh then, “As long as it’s not as bad as that time…”

The time my mom changed me and a minute later, I went again. And again. Three times and I exhausted all the diapers. I mean, my mom had alot of things to carry, and that should have been more than enough diapers. No one knew I was born with super human powers. My mom had to fashion a makeshift diaper out of a shirt. That must have pissed me off. Because for some reason, the last one blew through onto my mom’s dress. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention, my mom wore a dress. A nice dress. That long slim traditional Vietnamese dress people wear on special occasions. Coming to America was apparently one of them. Being part of a natural disaster should have been another.

I figure this must have caused a scene.

She ran to the rest room to clean up. Kept my butt in the sink under the running water. My younger aunt came in with a change of clothes for my mom. She changed and threw away the dress and again, according to my aunt, they stayed there and kept me in the sink. They were out of things to change me into. They didn’t want to sacrifice another garment for my unholy butt. And my mom was too furious to cater to my comforts. The sink was good enough. And who needs diapers, or pants even. This was where it probably started. Anyways, more about that later. This was really the start of my mayhem my mom had to endure.

In any village, people knew one another pretty well. From the time people were young to when they were old, a village was like going to elementary school, learning from older people, making friends, sharing memories, and never quite leaving. You have your enemies and you have your friends. There’s a common courtesy you have among the people. The cordial greetings and the helpful hand. These were all givens. Expected behavior. In fact, it’s in your best interest to do good things because these are people you see everyday. In that room, on the other hand, weren’t people from our village. Strangers, only similar by skin color and facial features. All sharing a lost country and stuck in the same circumstances. Yet, this was all my people needed. You’d hear all about it in later times. Stories of Vietnamese refuges strengthening each other to overcome the odds of escaping. Carrying one another out of times of poverty sharing food, clothing, and shelter. These were all countrymen striving to keep the yellow and red striped flag alive in our hearts. And those stories would dwarf anything coming out of a cramped immigration lobby rest room, let alone a little child’s butt.

However, this was the part that everyone but my grandmother left out. Mainly because it wasn’t funny. And it was something only a grandmother can tell you and have the proper effect.

We probably stayed in the rest room for an hour. My mom was making sure I had everything out. I was told I didn’t mind, I slid around bare against the smooth porcelain sink. I was laughing, and yes, I was clean. Remember, this was all a precautionary measure. But then there was a knock and a lady came in. She brought some diapers to my mom and gave it to her. And what was astonishing, was it was a stranger, not even Vietnamese. It was the black lady she was staring at. She had seen the whole incident and must have gotten the diapers for us, knowing we couldn’t leave. She smiled and said a few things that my mom could barely understand as “Take these, they are for you.” I know if this were some television show, this would be that defining moment where the main character shatters their wrongful thoughts and does a 180 turn after the commercial break. Not exactly so. This was reality. It was a tiny move in the right direction. My mom’s first lesson, a pleasant one, in the new reality we were registering for. I can only picture in her mind, a light bulb sparking in front of a door labeled, “misconceptions”. A place to visit. A place to re-evaluate subjects. A place to redefined what Vietnamese meant. Mainly because we weren’t in our village anymore.

Here

At first I thought life was all about where we were, then I thought it was in how we got there. No matter what I really thought though, I thought I was never right, especially according to my family. I couldn’t understand what my parents were trying to instill in us then. Maybe it was the fear of being wrong. I don’t know. They were everything you’d fear in parents, a stereotypical Asians with every idea on how to be perfect, backed by the endless lessons from the Bible endorsed by the Catholic church. We, my brothers and I, were in a no win situation. We should have given up. Thrown in the towel. Let them mold us into the perfect kids we should have been. But of course, situations weren’t ideal, and of course, how we got to where we were, wasn’t perfect. Though it may have seemed like it.

Saigon, Vietnam, February 1975.

We were farmers, except for me, I was thirteen months old, on a durian farm. A durian, if you don’t know much about the fruit, is this spiky green fruit. About as hard as a pineapple that you’d have to break open to eat. It’s what’s inside people go for. This mushy, fibrous yellow-orange substance that gives off one of the worse pungent smells you’d encounter in fruit land. It’s amazing this stuff is considered a delicacy. But lucky for us. That made us a pretty wealthy family. Actually I should point out, it was because of my grandfather. The farm was his family legacy and my grandmother married into it after his first wife passed away. That was many years before we entered the war. From what I was told, he was a prominent figure in the village back then. My grandmother was fortunate to marry him even wit his three kids. I guess things were great. My grandmother had four other children, three daughters and a son. My mom was the second oldest in my grandmother’s bloodline. Everything was great until, the war? Yeah, but no. It was my grandfather. He fell ill. I still remember what my mom told me.

“I knew it when came home,” she’d tell me staring at my aunt, the youngest one. “I didn’t even need to go inside.”

My mom always wanted to make sure her sister was okay whenever she’d tell the story. I’ve heard it a million times. I’m sure she had too. It wasn’t ever going to be a day, she’d break down about that.

“There was a crow on the front steps. It cawed and flapped its wings as it walked back and forth. I was scared, but not of it. when it flew away, I knew he passed away.”

He passed away when my grandmother was still young. It wasn’t like life instantly changed. Anyone that’s been in any family can tell you that. It’s more like, they slowly changed. Life still moves on and those years you’ve spent together does mean something. It’s never anything you can wash away no matter how hard you scrub and never should you try. It only leads to pain and trouble. Really.

So basically, my grandmother and her kids ran the farm, from picking the fruit to selling them. That was them. Once part of a prestigious family humbled to basic farm workers. What happened to the other side of the family? I’m not sure.

As the war came, we still lived our normal lives. My mom eventually got married to my dad and had us, my two older brothers and the little shit, me. My dad soon was enlisted as a pilot for the U.S. It paid well. Enough for us to buy a house and even a car. This was back in the seventies. Imagine, in the 21st century, the primary mode of transportation in Saigon was via scooter. A car was rare. So back in those days. I’d like to imagine we were doing great. It was a jeep. I know because it’s the only picture I have of us back there. A black and white picture. We were at a corner of the house. Only thing you can make out is the overhanging roof and our house number 3519. We were all there next to the jeep wrangler parked next to the house. It was at an angle facing off to the left of the picture. There was no driveway. My parents stood in front of the left side mirror with my two brothers standing below. I’m sitting on the hood with my dad. He holds me firm staring at the camera. He sporting his plaid button up shirt and shiny watch. My mom wore a flower print shirt and black bell bottom pants. It would have made the perfect 70′s family picture, but my mom had turned to me as the picture snapped. I figured I did something. You can’t figure out from the picture, so I must of did what I did best back then, farted.

So that was the only picturesque image I had of Vietnam.

It was a month before the official fall of Saigon and we were ready to go. My aunt, the oldest, had married an American G.I. and as you may have guessed, that meant we were going. And this was by plane. We were the other migration of Vietnamese you seldom hear about. Not the boat people and their courageous stories, but the bastards that got a free ride, straight into the U.S.