I am Vietnamese.

Julie Le

Week 8

ASA002 A01

11/08/2015

In Love, Money, Prison, Sin, Revenge Lam, an American journalist states “No matter how articulate a Vietnamese becomes, when we set foot on American shore, history is already against us. Vietnam goes on without us, America goes on without acknowledging us.” I thought this quote was really interesting because it addresses the issue of intersectionality between being Vietnamese and American and the struggle of finding a balance between both and finding a stance within both identities. Being Vietnamese American I’m not Vietnamese enough and I’m not American enough. I lie somewhere in between but I’m unable to express either identities without constantly being questioned by both sides. I like this quote because it acknowledges that I can work as hard as I want but I will never be seen as an equal within American society. I will just be feeding into the Model Minority Myth (MMM) of “hardworking Asian Americans that lifted themselves up by their bootstraps and someone other minorities should look to,” which is incredibly upsetting because the MMM disregards my family and people’s history, compiling it into two few pages in a history textbook when my culture and history is so much more complex than that.

So my question is: Will we ever be able to reach an age where the history of Southeast Asians will be acknowledged and learned about in public schools? Why is it so difficult to be able to acknowledge this part of history that affects so many folks within the United States?