I love my country -- America. In this world that might be headed towards some kind of post-nationalist paradigm, maybe the idea of loving your country might be going out of fashion, and if I had said I was a proud Costa Rican, maybe the response form other people might be a bit more forgiving, especially in Vietnam. But when a person who looks and speaks Vietnamese says they're American, it is unacceptable and even offensive to some Vietnamese. And I've gotten a lot of different responses, but I think the one that is most hurtful and common is: "Go back to your country." That is the comment that caused me to flip out in a bar last night and inspired this blog.
Because I look Vietnamese and proudly identify with America, I no longer have any right to be here. I can't possibly love Vietnam too. I'm not allowed to love its children who I teach, its culture, its history, and the many local friends I have here. So we can't feel proud of where we came from and at the same time have respect and even admiration for other cultures.
Of course the image of a proud American who looks Vietnamese would be a problem here, given the history between the two countries. Vietnamese children are raised on the idea that America was once a brutal and merciless enemy bent on absorbing Vietnam into it's massive capitalist empire. A walk through the War Remnants Museum here gives a sobering reminder of the people who died because of the arrogance and insensitiveness of a superpower nation. It tore this little country apart, with one side branded the American "puppets." Those "puppets" and their children and grandchildren now live in affluent countries (not by easy means) and some have returned arrogant and pretentious, flaunting their wealth and "developed" way of thinking. I don't blame people here for disliking these people.
What bothers me is another thing that we think we've moved on from, but is more alive than ever - racism. I don't mean the racism that gives birth to racial slurs, I mean the seeing of people and the world based on a hierarchy of race. When a Vietnamese person hears me say "American," an error message appears in their brain and they respond, "you don't look American." My tall, blonde friend next to me can be American, even if his parent's are from Romania or Germany or Macedonia. But I look and speak Vietnamese, hence not American. So forget saying I'm proud to be American.
This thinking is so commonplace and widespread that it's probably bad for my health to get worked up about it, since it'll just keep happening. But I won't ignore it. I'm not going to let people tell me what I can be a part of, especially when I'm proud for the very fact that America is something that different people can be a part of. And I'm not going to let someone off the hook for not being up-to-date with the struggles and triumphs of colored people in America to possess equal footing with white people, especially if they continue to discriminate based on that ignorance. And most importantly, I won't let anyone tell me where my home is.
I'm not proud of America for everything it is or does. To be honest, I can't even explain why I'm proud. But I know it's there when people are attacked in Boston, and I feel like I'm part of what happened. When they got Osama Bin Laden, I walked up to the top of a building in Nha Trang and shouted at the top of my lungs. I felt this feeling too, back in June of 2008, at my brother's funeral. My brother was a soldier, killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb.
Unlike me, my brother spent most of his childhood in Vietnam. He faced all the dangers of leaving on a small boat just like hundreds of others did. He lived in a refugee camp and waited to be admitted to a place he only heard about. In America, his friends were of all colors and many were immigrants just like him, trying to make sense of what being American meant. He loved playing basketball and he idolized Michael Jordan. He spoke broken English with a heavy Vietnamese accent. After high school, he joined the army and did three tours in Iraq, the third one being his last.
When he was over there, I spoke proudly of him and what he did. I told people he was defending our country and what America was all about: freedom, democracy, tolerance. Then a few years into it I started to doubt what I said. The purpose of the war in Iraq wasn't so clear and I found it harder to explain what exactly he was doing there. I even questioned my beliefs about being American, and my brother's. I never recalled him saying that he was doing it for patriotic reasons.
No, he did it for the same reason many poor, urban young people do it, because he didn't have other options. The army offered him some direction at a time when he didn't know where to go.
But I learned what America meant to him when I visited him right after his daughter was born near an American base in Germany. I saw how much he loved his fellow soldiers, again people of all different colors and backgrounds, many of whom were probably there for similar reasons. I remember the look in his eyes when he mentioned the friends he'd lost. He talked about doing another tour to make some money so he could buy a house in California for his family.
On the day of his funeral at a Catholic cemetery in Los Angeles, dozens of strangers came to offer their condolences. Some were Vietnamese, but most were not. At first I thought they were just friends who knew him in the army, but then as more arrived I realized people were coming from all over the city. Police officers, fire fighters, big bikers on Harley's -- all sorts of people showed up. They were White, Black, Hispanic, Asian -- all there to show respect for someone who gave his life for a place he wasn't even born in. He died for an America that to him, just meant "home."
So when I'm told I can't be American, I think back to that scene of all those people who are all part of some immigrant story, gathering and standing united in one place and by one idea, honoring my brother who is not white or of European descent, for his service to his country. No one there that day would doubt who my brother or anyone in my family were. We are Americans, not bigoted and fanatical patriots who think we're better than anyone else, just part of the millions of intertwining lives that make up the story of that country.
Staff Sergeant Du Hai Tran
U.S. Army
