In the first few months of life, babies are unable to recognize themselves as “separate” from their mothers. Child psychology states that this is due to lack of object permanence and an undeveloped sense of identity and space. Your identity was first your mother’s.
So what does it mean when your mother gives you up for adoption right after you are born?
For me, it means that I spent my childhood asking every other Asian kid in my class if they were Vietnamese (they often never were). It meant looking into the mirror and dreading seeing almond eyes and straight black hair. It meant that I was destined to search for my face in every Vietnamese woman I came across.
I always wondered why my parents thought to bring an Asian child to the middle of Kentucky. This place was their home, but could it ever really be mine?
On some days, the answer is yes. I really do love my city. The transition of seasons in Louisville keeps time (even though we sometimes get all four in the span of a day or two). The energy of the city when Derby comes around is incredibly intoxicating and I can never stop myself from cheering when the fireworks show comes on. Strangers in this community have taught me a lot about the power of random acts of kindness. And so many of the people I love live here. I don’t think I’ll ever stop caring about this place, the land of bluegrass that my parents brought me to.
Difference is an inevitability in a story like mine. We tell young children here in the U.S. that our differences are to be embraced. To be accepted. But I often wonder now if we do not talk enough, if at all, about the isolation that differences can bring when no one is seemingly able to see the world through your eyes.
So even when I look into the vast expanse of Kentucky’s sky, the sunsets painting sides of the hills with golds and pinks, I cannot help but feel a deep sense of melancholy. In another lifetime, I would be viewing this world from Vietnam. But here, my memory fails me…
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