One Language Disappears Every Two Weeks
The summer after first grade, my mother endeavored to teach my brother and me Vietnamese. She bought two pads of lined paper and tasked us to copy words from margin to margin, as if marching across a room. First, the name of her former country:
Việt Nam Việt Nam Việt Nam Việt Nam Việt Nam Việt Nam Việt Nam Việt Nam Việt Nam Việt Nam Việt Nam
Then, the words for father and mother:
bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố bố
mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ mẹ
My brother and I hated this rote repetition. We had no reason to learn her language—except to eavesdrop when she spoke on the phone with our auntie in Los Angeles.
The only Vietnamese in the remote Yooper[1] town were my mother, me, my younger brother, and my youngest brother (who was exempt from this task on account of his age).
Who else was there to talk to?
I had no need to know what she and her sister discussed; I knew that our home was crumbling, that my father was often absent “for work.” Most nights my brothers and I fell asleep to our parents arguing—in English, for us to hear too plainly.
During those long summer days, when the sun lingered until 9pm, I would rather be outside away from the metastasizing discord in our home playing with my Star Wars and He-man action figures.
Boba Fett, the most fearsome bounty hunter in the galaxy, didn’t say excuse me when he bagged his quarry.
xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi xin lỗi
Tri-Klops, the skilled warrior, with his rotating visor helmet and three artificial eyes, never received a thank you from his brusque master Skeletor.
cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn cảm ơn
My mother’s lessons in Vietnamese were short-lived that summer, and when they ended, my brother and I celebrated our parole from language lessons.
More time for Boba Fett and Tri-Klops.
Later, during the school year, my mother settled into her new home. From then on, my brothers and I divided our time between mom’s home……………………………………and dad’s home.
My mother then busied herself with waitressing and pursuing a bachelor’s degree. Gone were the hours and effort to teach us her mother tongue, the language of our relatives in Vietnam, from before the war, when it had its whilom name, Annam.
In a single summer, her language began to fade, and the one word for home fragmented.
nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà nhà
A decade later…
when my grandparents left Vietnam…
to reside in the US for the remainder of their lives…
I had no words to cross the chasm between us
and unlock the stories that they carried.
[1] A native or resident of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, eh?
Photo by Marcus Urbenz on Unsplash
opusculum 