My Easter experience from a Vietnamese American perspective. I always disliked my name. It looks so foreign. C, H, A U; I murmured these letters, hoping that the more I broke down my name, grinded it to its core, it’d somehow make sense. It’s only four letters. But the more I stared at it, the more alien it seemed. What kind of name was “Chau” when there were two Chris’s in my school? Or all of the Kevins? Even if their last name was Phan, Pham, Nguyen, or Vu, at least their names were normal. You can’t make fun of a Kevin like you can make fun of a Chau. Even though they were Vietnamese, my friends’ American names made me acutely aware that even among my own social circle, I was still marked as different. Even though I grew up in a large Vietnamese and Hispanic community, even though I ate at Lee’s Sandwich and munched on pandan waffles at Grand Century Mall, I desperately wanted to assimilate into American culture. Assimilation didn’t mean, however, bringing my own Vietnamese traditions and backgrounds to the “melting pot” - it meant disavowing it. The first moment I thought of assimilation...
