VVN

it is my dream to be able to speak history in poems

[vvn-poetry]

Ships

Our origin stories start in Saharan Africa Sun-darkened skin searching past the Red Sea

It was the shore    Where a Vietnamese legend claims we descended from the mountains and the sand Land inhabited by dragons and fairies It is the sea that holds us together

This water connects us And I keep seeing ships when I close my eyes Too late to be a warning sign These are the scenes of the past that replay in my mind

It was the shore    Where West Africans were stolen Taken captive Capture This image in you mind as you fast forward Then rewind to April 1975 Bodies filling boats fleeing from a fallen regime

To some a ship can mean death And to others it can mean a dream

But this symbol isn’t that simple A single vessel couldn't hold our stories together Any better than the chains could keep us from rebellion Imagine while African American marched for justice and liberation Vietnamese freedom fighters broke the yokes of French domination Tried to create their own nation But someone meddled in the election And the US began the service selection To prevent the dominoes from falling down Drawing from the poor, the black, and the brown These bodies dispensable in taking the yellow men down

I mean Men and women and children And everyone between Survivors of war crimes and sexual violence Silent and never seen

Every person was a potential target What is the difference between a slant-eyed gook bitch and a mother? You all look the same These wars all look the same Are you from the north or the south? North Vietnam or South Vietnam? Are you from the Union or Confederate States? America- Do not forget this was a civil war It seems you believe your role was to free the slaves But you neglected to give them their rights Just sent them off to fight a people who wanted self-determination Continue the vicious perpetration of a cycle of supremacy We were made to be each others’ enemies

Do not forget that we were all at once Black and Yellow Panthers And that Dr. King once wrote: “We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls “enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers..."

Our neighbors Redlining and refugee resettlement Created this sentiment Pockets of Southeast Asian families Implanted into Black poverty Hidden away from middle class eyes Except in reports of racial violence and hate crimes The war came home to America And when you can’t see your future beyond your next meal It’s hard to see the men pulling the puppet strings

And when we The Vietnamese people Were collapsed into an Asian identity And aspired to become a model minority We neglected to look back Too afraid of the questions we must ask Why am I here rather than the shore and and sea? What has Black Lives Matter got to do with me? One hundred years of trauma is a lot to forget But I’d rather remember the suffering and the solidarity Than create a new debt We owe it to each others’ survival To stop thinking that we are rivals We have shared too much of a past to not share a future 

[vvn-poetry]

Performance - Recoil

Second poem from my first memorized performance. I could not wait to get this piece in front of an audience.

[vvn-poetry]

Performance - The World Was Color Before It Was Black And White

This was my first open mic performance where I had memorized my pieces!

[vvn-poetry]

Grandfather Clock

In this world, I was gifted with three grandfathers

The first is nothing but a nameless ghost My mother’s father is not even a memory in her child’s mind And to me he is a mystery The only thing I have of him is one fourth my DNA

Grandfather clock, ticking

Grandpa is an oddly shaped piece to my family puzzle To him I associate the Americanness of my full-blooded Vietnamese self His memory is held within a Thanksgiving turkey, green bean casserole, And summers by a lake in the New England mountains that are so distant to me now The syllables of his name sounded funny on my tongue When I was old enough to realize he was not like the rest of us And then I was old enough to recognize that to others he might have been seen as our savior But to some of us he was actually our savior Grandpa: As you watch me in heaven I beg of you Do not think badly of me Do not assume that I am unraveling the Americanness out of me And think of me as a betrayer to your cause I am only trying to survive living history It’s been 4, 5, 6, almost 7 years since I wished I could be your savior

Grandfather clock, ticking It is too soon to be praying again

Ong breathes slowly in a hospital bed somewhere in Delaware Skin and heart worn rough from French colonialism, Japanese occupation, and civil war I read a page in history class and realized he was there to live it Our patriarch, his aversion to snow 40 years ago led us to our current home He shaped my future and rocked my baby self to sleep In America where I feel like I am at war, he is in refuge But his heart still remembers and occasionally stops I’m beginning to believe it’s because we stopped going to church And giving blessings to our elders We didn’t have New Years this year I don’t know what will happen But in the morning I hope the sun shines the way he likes it to when he works on his garden I can’t remember the last time I spoke my broken Vietnamese to him Tomorrow I hope I will get the chance

Grandfather clock, ticking Don’t stop

[vvn-poetry]

Recoil

My presence is like a recoil First impressions are my strength, until I present to you my true state of being A passive aggressive reaction to Playing nice Playing the game And playing my way to the top of that Sociological order I need to escape I dare you to put me in my place Put my inside your pocket of a perfect stereotype Am I too pretty to spew epithets at your privileged existence? I’m not sorry the oppressed are prone to being pissed off Being stifled from a young age didn’t come without a cost I’m tired of being a self-fulfilling prophecy of a child prodigy I’ve got straight A’s because I’m an overachieving Asian American Activist Advocating the Advancement of the human race Just overcompensating for a history of internalized hate With radical love of self and radical love of others I do this for my mother She doesn’t understand me now As I didn't understand her then Then when I forgot the language we communicated in Wanted to wish the melanin off my skin I just wanted to fit in, you know? But I’m a recoil And every action has an equal an opposite reaction That’s why I have this aggressive passion To reclaim who I was born to be I feel like she was stolen from me Forgot about my past from ages nine to nineteen These textbooks won’t have you believing I’m a descendent of warrior queens Of a people of resistance Vietnamese is not a culture of submission Like the one they tell through the narrow slanted eyes of western perception There is no intention To teach us brown folk our history We have to find it ourselves Dig deep into bookshelves and minds And squeeze substance from the covers that bind Together the white pages of supremacy Until we have crafted together a new story And so I recite to you my own: I was born into the ranks of a model minority And realized this white-washed life was boring me So I went on a journey Traveled east until the sun baked people’s skin into a similar shade But all I could see was how these Americans steal and invade When I cried for help all of them thought I was insane My people, we sell our history to tourists at a discounted profit No wonder it’s a skewed tale that these children are taught It left a hole in my heart When I returned, I had more pride than when I began Held the stories of my people clenched in a fist-raised hand I imagine the whispers behind my back saying, “Why is she like this way, this little Asian girl from a small town?" It’s because I’m a recoil And I will tear this system down

[vvn-poetry]

tonight i am in bangkok

walking down this night-lit street on land proud to never have been colonized but has it really never been colonized this - is a product of a new kind of colonization the exploitation of a people for the sake of our enjoyment i cannot consume it without feeling the blood we share flowing through my veins and the cut is like a flood flooding tears flooding to my eyes the moment i said it out loud that our ancestors were one your heart is tied to mine your life is tied to mine your death is tied to mine our struggles exist together and i do not wish to exist in a way that harms you because when you bleed the cries will come from my lungs but nobody here understands you not like i do i’m not here for fucking fun and games i am here because this is where i belonged before they usurped me from my land before they invaded and conquered and i am here to find a piece of me that wasn’t made in usa but all i can find is heartbreak that i am privileged enough to walk the streets in which you lay making the most meager pieces of change at the sake of losing your humanity i have watched you being treated like animals and been told that you chose this life and there is nothing i want to do more than to rip the words out of those people’s mouths that have never felt the emptiness of a house full of people but lacking in sustenance but i guess i am one of those mouths i’ve been afforded a comfortable lifestyle by the blood of my kinfolk but this mouth will not stay shut to the harm i see around me and be it may that i make more enemies than friends i hope that the tears stop soon because this is too much for my heart

===

I am studying abroad in Thailand and a night in a market known for it's wildness and being surrounded by my peers in privileged whiteness left me with sadness and frustration. This is what happens when you cannot unsee systematic injustices that inform how the world works.

[vvn-poetry]

Today I am Thankful

Today I am thankful for this country Not because of its claims to freedom and equality Which in times like these it is not clear we have But because this country was founded on revolution This country Built upon the blood of a forgotten indigenous people And the backs of black labor Today I am thankful for the ones that came before me Me with my relative privilege Proximity to white supremacy cloaked in a model minority myth Today I refuse to forget that the discomfort in my own Asianness Is bound to a system that was created to pull us apart History neglects to tell the stories of our collective struggle We all arrived to this moment with our own stories Some were here already Some were taken against their will Some were absorbed by manifest destiny Some were taken in as refugees Some came here by their own power But all of us were not who this country was made for Today I am thankful that we have our voices So use it to tell them how you feel Do not let them deny you humanity anymore We have been forced to be strong We have been forced to be angry When all we want to do is cry I am tired - I don't want to fight anymore No longer can we allow another black man Another black woman Another gay or trans or disabled youth Die by white supremacy's hands Without justice Today I am thankful for you America's youth You who make me believe That we have the power to change Some people think that I am pessimistic By constantly bringing up injustices And never letting things be the way they are On the contrary I believe I am optimistic Because I believe we are at the tipping point Of another revolution Little did those murderous officers know that they sent The shots heard around the world

[vvn-poetry]

Halloween

When I was little Halloween scared me Because friendly neighbors grew fangs And that wrinkly witch's hand You know, the one that lit up and cackled Prevented me from grabbing my favorite candies I am 22 and Halloween still scares me Because somehow it's okay to stain faces black And hoodies with red paint And call yourself Trayvon Martin Are you kidding me?! Every 28 hours a black man is killed in attack By someone who looks like a George Zimmerman And on Halloween it's hard to distinguish The real racists from the people who Just want to have fun I guess Janay Rice is just another domestic violence Victim turned punchline Pun  fully  intended Because black women have always been a joke Black -- Brown Red Yellow They're skinning us alive and wearing Our cultures draped across their shoulders Like slaughtered lion pelts Calling it appreciation and honor Those blue and white dishes on the mantlepiece Are starting to look like mounted animals heads Hunting trophies They came, they saw, they conquered Simple as that If we were respected as much as animals We would have at least had protection as being endangered Because the last speakers of Native American tongues are dying As we write poems in our second language And they wear headdresses in the name of fashion What's the attraction To being a marginalized member of society for a night? Is it the constant reminder that we don't belong and historical disenfranchisement of our rights That seem so   s  e  x  y? Sexy geisha Sexy Indian Sexy Asian Sexy Arab Sexy oriental dragon lady tiger mom Madame butterfly miss Saigon I don’t care if you look hot with that costume on You don’t have to live in it 24/7 It’s offensive and appropriating And even after this I know I’m gonna see Some costumes that are just fucking racist

[vvn-poetry]

This is not a game

My identity is not a game to play While making casual conversation It should not be that every stranger Wonder about how I belong to this nation Because I know nothing but the sights Of suburban America And just wanting to blend in He studies my features Make up masks my biological inheritance Yet he will still try to make a match To my country of heritage And in this momentary bliss Of experiencing something different He knows no offense that this is what I live with Always   second   guessing That I am worth more than my flesh

[vvn-poetry]

ESL

One time I introduced myself to a new classmate Hoping to forge meaningful connections Or at least Get a decent group for a semester long project He told me, "Your English is so good!" I laughed and pushed it aside But I was seething inside You know If I could go back to that moment I would have said something snarky Maybe something like: As a matter of fact English was my second language But I'm willing to bet that my command of the English language is better than yours Sat writing -- perfect 800 score English was my second language But it is the only language I know now Your society has stolen those accented syllables from me Sealed them away in the depths of my mind Teaching me that they weren't worthy of my yellow tongue So that I could sit in that one classroom And listen to this white history professor take the sounds from my people’s mouths And stumble over them like they were his to keep English was my second language I remember kneeling in front of my grandparents' homemade alter Muttering Vietnamese Catholic prayers before I was old enough to go to school Lạy Cha chúng con ở trên trời, chúng con nguyện danh Cha cả sáng Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name But what about my name? I would never change my name But it betrays me Turning introductions into a game "Let me guess, where are you from?" Creating confused remarks “What is it short for?" My two syllables Vi Bùi The first is not short for anything Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language Do not dare Anglicize me And call me Violet, Victoria, Vivian I hate those names The last is a legacy 11 amazing souls that traveled half the world So I could be born in Delaware And live here for 21 years of my life So yes, I guess my English is pretty good.

//

Author's note: I have since decided to use Vivian (VVN) as my poet pseudonym. Ironic. This was the first poem in a set of two that I've actually performed in front of real live people.

[vvn-poetry]

The world was color before we knew it as black and white

There is evidence dating back to the 8th Century That Southeast Asian trade routes Spanned from the East Coast of Africa to the port cities of Tang Dynasty China

The world was color before we knew it as black and white

Little is known of how we marched side by side to a dream of equal rights As our distant relatives sat at the same table in Bandung, Indonesia, 1955

Rather They feed us lies Telling us who we are

They called my people the “model minority” in The New York Times, 1966 So that they could shove it in your face saying If they can do it, why can’t you? If you work hard enough, you can be almost white, too

They told you you were too dumb They told me I was too “smart” With the aim to pull us apart Can they not see that in our hearts That we have the same capacity to love To lust To hurt To trust Too much In the myth they call Economic success

We are all desperate for a piece of that cake So when the opportunity arises We’re all so willing to claim a stake On land that is not ours Neo-colonialism

So desperate that we’ll do anything it takes Do anything to recreate Those lies that they told us Violent, hip-hop, stupid Quiet, kung fu, Confucius Just in order to fit in

For twenty one years I thought that I was somehow better For not doing this And for not doing that Failing to realize how actions coded black Were frowned upon

But now I see

And I believe

In Afro-Asian

Solidarity

Originally posted May 2, 2014 my poetry challenge blog.