Thang Nguyen 555

1954 Bac 54 (Northern transplant e.g. Bui Chu, Phat Diem)

1975 Barge (and every other modes of transport) people – Viet refugees

1979-onward Boat People and associated stigma

1990=till the close of ODP (orderly departure pg) reuniting families of American/Vietnam? war

2000-today, legal and illegal tourist and overstay visas…..

Dates that define us. Dates that separate us, just like North and South Korea, North of the 17th parallel in Vietnam, and even today, here in the US – Southern man, Southern band (Lynyrd Skynyrd) and Southern States.

The rip in the Earth or Earth cries out via flooding (Indiana), earthquake and tsunami.

The human race. Advanced, then retreated (or hid in compartment).

We never learned that per VU meter (volume units), that louder doesn’t make one truer, and that quantity could never trump quality.

AI is learning. All the time. Yet we take a break, most of the time.

Bout time we are nudged, pressed and pushed.

If we don’t, someone else (machine more likely) will.

I have studied my family tree carefully. Today, I learned s/t new: it takes three generations for us to marry “outside” of our traditional and familiar contour (I don’t want to use “provincialism”).

Always “mon dang ho doi”, marriages of equal: educational level, mandarin ranking and regional accent. My cousin, a teacher-turned-airborne enlistee dared to marry a Southerner (but a colleague teacher).

Another cousin who was gay ended up in a force marriage, released from re-education camp only to commit suicide when spouse (also a victim) was found unfaithful.

Back to “does a date dictate our whim?”

Or scientifically and sociologically, nature or nurture? gene pools drive the undercurrent of decision debate?

Work together smarter with purpose and passion?

What if diversity drives better informed choice?

Women might lead better (if compensated more)?

Child rearing, pet attending, house-keeping and border securing? With drones, the equation might change after all, just like laptop and I-phones which made mobility (and weightlessness) possible.

Dates don’t define us. Technology does. Coupling does. And of course, culinary does.

In short, we end up in clusters, ethnic ones, where when deteriorated, is termed “ghetto”.

I decry hypocrisy when seeing second generation immigrant feeling shameful of their parents ethnic cuisine and comedy.

In laughing we cry, and vice versa.

An upper classman pointed out that “they thought they were White”. Similar outcry stated by the likes of Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright (who refused to come back to the US).

Please treat one another as human that we are.

Not calling us by a mode of transport (horse buggy?), Hilly Billy, Boat People or Mayflower (now a hotel, not a boat).

Queen Mary was proud to be christened a ship I saw often docked in Long Beach, CA.

Nothing wrong with technology, mode of transport or someday, Icarus drone for people (it killed one of our friends who was a surgeon).

Bac 54, 75, 90 or 2000. All ignore a bigger elephant in the room, one which America feels shameful at the mention: the war which we lost.

In truth, to deflect or fill up the hollow, we speak of and amplify trivial subject, so loud and virally that the VU meter in the control room broke.

People hurting people still. Might not be an M-16 or AK-47 or as traumatic as My Lai or Hue 68, but thanks to TikTok we now have the means at our disposal, mostly for ill more than for good.

I’d rather us inter-marry or even with same sex, than to use “free” mode of communication for ill and verbal assault.

Bac 54 they called my parents. Viet-Kieu 75, they call me (or label me). My friend, Boat People, they call him. And so on so forth, legal and illegal to be “stun-gunned”, zip-tied or hog-tied unseeming for the human that we are (G. Floyd).

Perhaps a certain date does define us after all, since date is associated with label and stereotype.

But that is for the weak. The strong, the rest of us, would not stand by and let it slide. Or define us, since “hate” and “evil” always are on the lookout for the next victims to draw blood, its subsistence.