COMICS

Inheritance

By VYVY WONDER  |  05 MAY 2023

First panel has a girl on a toilet shouting "ME OI! XONG ROI!! Translation: Mom!! I'm Done!!!!) So technically my first language was Vietnamese. Second panel: Illustration of the inside of a head showing a burger and an american flag stepping on a bowl of rice. The burger is saying "Move over punk, this is our land now!" Text above reads: Of course, as soon as school started, American English took over. Third panel: A family eats at a busy dinner table, chatting in English and Vietnamese. Text reads "Growing up, we mostly spoke English at home. My parents spoke Viet-dominant Vietnamesenglish with each other." Fourth panel: An illustration of a hand holding a family photograph. Text reads "In retrospect it seems inevitable where my family landed linguistically. After all, my parents were teenagers when they immigrated. Photo of my mom's family at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, which was turned into a refugee camp for Southeast Asian refugees in the 70s. Not sure who the nun is. Fifth panel: Illustration of a girl peacefully skateboarding. Text reads "Growing up, I heard as many stories from my mom and her siblings about Vietnam as I did about their coming of age in San Francisco. Like how my aunt would skateboard around their park Merced apartment complex. Sixth panel: The same girl lies in bed with a casette player and a diary, posters for Wham! and ABBA on the wall. Text reads "And diligently transcribe George Michael lyrics into her notebook." First panel: A family gathers around a grave. Text reads My little sisters feel ashamed of their limited ability to speak Vietnamese. When our Gramma died last fall they were heavy with memories o fall their conversations with her that had been stilted by language. Second panel: A figure touches the gravestone and says "Bye Gramma, I love you" with a small text below reading "I'm certain she can understand this message in whatever language, in the great beyond!" Text reads- Me, I don't really share this shame. Third panel: A family in a hospital room greeting a new baby. Text reads- I admit this may be partially because I do have a bit more Vietnamese than they do, being older and closer to the time of our parents' resettlement. Fourth panel: A somewhat abstracted baby, with a head full of Vietnamese letters springing into abstracted plant shapes. Text reads: The tones of Vietnamese were the earliest I heard, they took root in my brain. Fifth panel: A busy street scene text reads When I was 19 I spent the summer in Siagon and regained some fluency (Which I've since lost). I guess this is probably part of why I'm not overly ashamed of my shitty Vietnamese: on some level I believe Vietnam and Vietnamese will always be there for me. Sixth panel: A quiet car full of family. Text reads But I think, more than anything, I just don't believe it makes any sense to feel shame around my limited Vietnamese, so I refuse it! Seventh panel: The car drives away from the graveyard. Text reads; Isn't it only history? Isn't it only cause and effect? First panel: Helicopters above the jungle of Vietnam. Text reads My parents fled a war and migrated to a country where English predominates. Second panel: A nun stands in front of a blackboard pointing at Vietnamese alphabet. Text reads We attended some Vietnamese language school on Saturdays as kids, but- tale as old as time- we didn't like it and it didn't stick. Third panel shows a kid watching the Nickelodeon show Doug, text reads "in retrospect I looked down on Vietnamese-ness I wanted to distance myself from it and to be closer to some sort of (probably white) all-American ideal. Fourth panel: Kids playing with barbies on a rug. One says Wanan go to Bobs Diner the other says Yeah lets get Malts-- a note at the bottom states No effing clue what malts are. Text reads Which, yeah, is sad and madenning, but it feels very obvious to me that those feelings were not our fault. We were kids doing what kids do and trying to fit in. Fifth panel: A figure looks down at a name badge which reads 'Hello I am Fake!" Text reads A lot of my friends say they don't feel (insert immigrant identity here) enough. Sixth panel: A diagram of VyVy Wonder with traits, work and activities, relationships, characteristics. Text reads But me, I don't feel this way. The way I see it, I'm Vietnamese because I'm Vietnamese. It's unconditional, even boring, simply a fact about me. Isn't it foolish and short-sighted to make belonging to our own communities so conditional? Seventh panel shows a couple with a small baby between them. Text reads shouldn't we, more than most, understand migration as the central fact of our species? My kid, should I ever have one, will be mixed race and probably won't speak much Vietnamese. Of course, there is loss in this but I'll be damned before I let her feel ashamed. First panel shows the figure with a name badge reading hello I am me! Text reads I don't believe in conditions of belonging to our own identity, you are who you are because you are. Second panel shows a figure cooking at a stove. Text reads I don't believe being Vietnamese means speaking the language or loving durian or knowing how to make pho from beef bones simmered for 24 hours under a full moon. (Although the benefits of knowing such ancient magic are self-evident) Third panel shows a variety of Vietnamese figures. Text reads But if it has to mean something, if there has to be some answer to the question of what it "truly means" to be Vietnamese, let it be rooted in our values, not in a skill. Fourth panel shows a family watching the news of kabul falling to the taliban. Text reads Let being Vietnamese mean humility before war, which has defined our diaspora, and which seems to be the other central fact of our species. Fifth panel shows many figures crowded on a raft. Text reads Let being Vietnamese mean relentless, radical compassion for refugees and a memory long enough to see oneself in the stranger. Sixth panel shows a family distraught running through the woods. Text reads Let being Vietnamese mean a reverence for the acts of unfathomable courage parents will take to protect their children. Seventh panel shows a line of people at a grocery store checkout, text reads And a mindfulness of how even the most ordinary-seeming person might be surviving extraordinary hardship. Eigth panel shows figure purchasing a durian. Text reads, The way I see it, as long as I hold onto these thing, my true inheritances, I will always be Vietnamese enough.

VyVy Wonder is a cartoonist, writer, physician, and educator. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Times, The Rumpus, Popula, Ruminate, The Intima, and more. She serves on the board of Refugee Youth Solidarity through Education (RYSE), a Providence, RI-based organization she has been deeply involved with for over a decade. She currently lives in the Bay Area, where she has deep roots, but come fall 2023 will be returning to Providence with her partner, Paul “Peapod” Wallace. She can be found at www.vyvywonder.com or on Instagram @vyvywondercomics.

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