My mother inserts the cassette
for her citizenship test
—questions & answers—
in her Toyota Cressida’s tape deck.
My mother remembers
everything after age 3.
When you are not meant to
remember
how you were born,
you remember everything else.
The tape deck rewinds
after the first run through
on her way to work.
Who’s the president?
What do you do when you’re asked to serve?
They never ask how she got here.
They are trying to forget
she exists
because the U.S. government
entered Vietnam.
A Vietnamese woman in her áo dài was there.
An unnamed American soldier with his gun was there.
My mother studies what to do for a country that still will not protect her.
She finishes the test early in Downtown Los Angeles.
The answers hum like the fan
at her punching clothing tags
factory job
in El Monte,
spiraling routine into survival.
This test might bring her closer to a home
she is trying to make sense of.
Afraid of being
accused of cheating,
she traces
questions & answers
with her pen,
pretending
to take longer
than needed.
My mother knows
how to read
every room.
Beyond her 4th grade education.
The truth is I can’t protect her with my degrees.
I can only tell her
be careful when she enters:
Every laundromat.
Every supermarket.
Every nail supply store. Every
Every
Alina Nguyễn is the proud queer daughter of Vietnamese immigrants. Her risograph chapbook, Before There Were More Ghosts, was published by Tomorrow Today. A Best of the Net nominee, Alina’s work has appeared in Bellingham Review, Breakwater Review, Lunch Ticket, and others. She is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she teaches and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor at Prairie Schooner.
