Reflection  

It was the mid-2000s.  I was sitting by myself in a Taipei hotel restaurant, eating congee from the breakfast buffet and casually scanning the local paper.  (I’m traveling for work.)  Suddenly, I came across a headline that caught my attention.  The story concerned the plight of Vietnamese women who were essentially mail-ordered brides for Taiwanese men.  While some women met happy fates with kind husbands, the majority struggled in relationships wherein the power dynamic was so skewed in favor of their (local) husbands that it left many of these (foreign) brides vulnerable to domestic abuse, if not servitude. 

 

As I read the story, I became overwhelmed with sadness and survivor’s guilt.  However, intermingled with these emotions was deep gratitude for my parents’ foresight and courage in deciding to risk life and limb more than 20 years prior to flee their homeland (Vietnam) in hopes of giving my brother and me a better future.  In so doing, they completely altered the trajectory of my life from one of few opportunities in a third-world, Communist country to one of seemingly endless opportunities in a first-world, Capitalist country (US).  Additionally, through hard work and sacrifice, my parents afforded me higher education and, thus, entry into a professional sphere that would (also) forever remain foreign to them. So, unlike many of the Vietnamese brides “imported” to Taiwan, I was there as a colleague rather than “the help.”                    

 

Alienation to Assimilation  

I once read that America is a sociological experiment; it’s a nation of mostly immigrants.  Since its “founding,” the seemingly endless waves of immigrants (e.g., English, Germans, Irish, Italians, Russians, Hungarians, Jews, Cubans, Mexicans, Filipinos, Chinese, Vietnamese, Somalians) to this country’s shores has collectively created a cultural diversity rarely seem in other places.  Like many immigrants, my family came to America in search of freedom and opportunities, which, in their view, could only be attained through fluency in English and higher education.  So, rather than settle in California or Texas where there was a higher concentration of Asians, my parents chose to rebuild our lives in Indiana.  They wanted my brother and I to grow up surrounded by native, English speakers.  This way, we could learn to speak English with no accents!  For my parents, English fluency was a survival skill and the key to the “promise land.”  For my brother (8) and I (6), English fluency meant less social isolation and greater social acceptance. 

 

Growing up, my brother and I subconsciously and naturally learned to navigate two starkly different worlds: the Asian one at home and the American one at large.  

·      Culture: Familial vs individual; consensus vs agency

·      Education: Math vs reading; rote memorization vs critical thinking

·      Language: Vietnamese vs English

·      Food: Rice vs bread

·      Utensil: Chopsticks vs fork

·      Etc…

Like most immigrant children, my brother and I adapted…because we had to.  

 

Assimilation to Alienation

Ironically, the more I assimilated into American culture, the more foreign I must’ve seemed to my parents and vice versa.  Based on my experience, key benefits to being bicultural are: flexibility; adaptability; ability to see and understand things from multiple, if not opposing, perspectives.  Key drawbacks to being bicultural are: forever feeling foreign, misunderstood, alone and adrift.  Neither culture fully reflected and/or reinforced who I was.  Although it was difficult to navigate seemingly divergent cultures, I got used to it over time, and so didn’t really question things until my mid-30s.  In an effort to relocate my parents to the Pacific Northwest (PNW), I felt pressured to had take on more financial risk and responsibility than I was ready to take on. Under the weight of that enormous expectation, I snapped physically, mentally and emotionally.  For almost two years, I walked around zombie-like in sweats – outwardly moving, but inwardly and emotionally hollow…dead. 

 

I once read that to change into a butterfly a caterpillar first must seal itself off in a cocoon and then excrete an enzyme that liquifies its body.  Only when it is broken down in form and identity can it be restructured into a butterfly.  In many ways, my two years away from work and everyday society felt like being in a cocoon.  Formless.  I was no longer the person I was, but not yet the person I was becoming.  However, once I emerged from my cocoon, I felt like a different person.  (No doubt my family and friends thought so, too.)  I was less interested in culture and more in my own nature; less invested in others’ expectations and more in my own expectations.

 

Ironically (again), this process of (re)assimilating and (re)connecting with myself further alienated me from those who were most familiar and comfortable with the “old me,” foremost being my parents.  However, to my surprise, this separation gave me the necessary space to see that my Life had always been my own.  And, since then, it’s from this space that I’ve navigated and ventured into other spaces for the purpose of exploration and joy rather than mere survival.  

 

Reconciliation with Self

These days, I feel just as comfortable with reading as I do with math.  I feel just as comfortable using a fork as I do chopsticks.  I feel just as comfortable wearing sneakers as I do flipflops.  What dictates my choice is not an adherence to culture, but to nature.  

 

Moreover, as I reflect further on my family’s journey from Vietnam to America, I can’t help wonder if my parents’ original intention for bringing me here was for me to fulfill their dreams or my own.  Or, perhaps they simply wanted to give me the opportunity to choose for myself.  One of the benefits of getting older is that I feel more comfortable choosing me.  For only when I choose me can I possibly choose you.