Throughout my life, some people have been overly preoccupied with “how” my parents “met” in an effort to fit me (as evidence of unsavory pairings) into an existing trope. Their prying sensationalism speaks volumes. “How’d your parents meet?”—with a raised eyebrow—a certain smugness unfolding, savoring a scandal. “Oh, wow.” Perhaps they’re cycling through the Hollywood films about the war, or Miss Saigon if they’ve seen it, to place me as a real life specimen of my own special kind, either as Amerasian or as a stand-in for my mother. At its worst, I’ve been repeatedly called Suzie Wong by a partner’s extended family, and when I protested, it was shrugged off as “cultural differences.”

I wouldn’t want to stare this gift horse of war in the mouth—upon asking about our origins in this country/world, some people are so overtaken by the phantasmagoria of the shameful war prostitute that they imagine her everywhere. Then they’re struck senseless stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out where to enter one of “her” daughters into the index of humanity.