Tôi Là Người Việt Nam ~ I Am Vietnamese
If you read my other blogs, by now you should know that I am Vietnamese. Both my parents are refugees that came from Vietnam and wanted to start a new life, especially after the destruction of the war, traveling by boat and plane over to the United States.
As a first-born and first generation American, my first language learned was English. At school, I would learn and speak English and at home, I would speak Vietnamese. Language switching from school to home wasn’t a big problem for me because I learned the dialect and terminology well.
Culturally, there are so many distinct holidays and traditions that I love and find very interesting. To me, things like that made me considerably unique from the rest of my friends who did not know much of their heritage. In other words, I could show off more things than they could (culturally speaking)! For one thing, New Years in the Vietnamese household is always significantly festive, colorful, exuberant, and joyous. (I have a blog post about this). Weddings and funerals too, for example, are celebrated in a big fashion; there are many traditions and customs to doing everything.
Expectations. Going to school, I found that many people were judgmental of my ethnicity. As an “Asian”, they expected people like me would be intelligent, creative, and wise. Sadly, this carried on throughout all of grade school and high school. From that, I somewhat molded into the person they thought I should be. But it is inevitable- judging and stereotyping. We must admit that. All of my family and friends have been through that and through time, it just comes natural in the Vietnamese society to be highly looked upon. Hopefully through time and patience, things will be better and the majority of people won’t have biased mindsets.
Many older Vietnamese living in America (who have come to the United States for the same/similar reasons as my parents did) dream of flying back to their homeland of Vietnam. They miss the weather, the rural lifestyle, the people, and memories they had there. When they pack up and get ready for their flight, they pack some things for themselves, but usually they pack more things for others. Noting that Vietnam is a third-world country with many people living in the poverty level, all of us (living in America) try to help them out. The people will appreciate anything given to them, from clothes to vitamins to chocolate. Many people cannot afford things that can be purchased here in the U.S., even at a cheap price.
