My mother swayed in a rocking ship from a refugee camp in Malaysia to the US, huddled behind the backs of wise elders with rotten-peach wrinkled faces, hiding from pirates hounding fresh flesh. In ESL class, she learns how to say, “Hello, my name is H and I am from Vietnam” and “Can you help me ____?” My mother, no English, what do you want me to say? My teacher says I need to stop pronouncing it, “wit.” It’s “with.” The girls at school think I’m a “fob,” so I want to change my name to an American “s” sound like Susan. My mom pries open my fist after I get a subtraction question wrong, slaps a chopstick down my palm. My grandpa grumbles, That star in the center, not my flag, then swigs a second Heineken down his calloused throat. My grandpa doesn’t speak English, I’ll say it to him: You can’t use food stamps on hot meals. Shit. The closest I could reach my grandpa’s war tattoo is when my taekwondo master, from the same Saigon city, teaches me how to swish nunchucks above my head, around my waist, behind my back, catch it with both hands, stab the air’s neck, jab the air’s eyes. Not strong enough, master says. On the way home from practice, a furniture truck’s slogan: You dream it, and We’ll make it. My mother wonders what it means — what you expect of me, I’ll try.
Xuân Tran is a poetry candidate for UCI’s MFA program in Creative Writing. She is also a poetry section editor for Irvine Valley College’s literary journal, The Ear. Currently, her work excavates within the sphere of trauma and fragmented memories.
