When Waves Collide: Not "American" Enough, Yet Too "White Washed"?

When Waves Collide:

Not American Enough. Yet Too White-Washed

Phat H. Le, LMFT

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE: Forgotten Years

CHAPTER TWO: Seeking Refuge

CHAPTER THREE: Growing up Different

CHAPTER FOUR: In Search of Love

CHAPTER FIVE: Summer to Remember

CHAPTER SIX: There’s Romance in Taking a Chance

CHAPTER SEVEN: Love and Relationships

CHAPTER EIGHT: Letter of Grief

CHAPTER NINE: My Lucky Years with Alcohol and Drugs

CHAPTER TEN: Why Music Matters

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Public Schools and Youths

CHAPTER TWELVE: The Sub Years

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Counseling Katrina

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Letter to Obama

EPILOGUE

Prologue

I AM STARING at the distant horizon anticipating their formation. As expected they arrive in mere moments, making their way toward the soft sandy shores of Del Mar. They followed the set before them, which did the same, an infinite natural occurrence that has probably been present on this Earth since the existence of life.

Today they appear in spectrums of calming lavenders and soft warm orange glows. As persistent as the setting sun above them, the waves collide. The guiding winds push one radiant wave above another, harnessing their energies together, with the potential to create change to all it collides with, each wave traveling its own unique journey, but always interacting with others. In the end the waves will make their final collision with rocks and sand, stirring, shaping, and softening the jagged edges.

I am left wondering when my last waves make their way to shore, if I have done enough on my life journey. Overwhelmed in deep reflection the passage of time narrows, the years of my life unfold within the canvas of my mind. Some say, in time all things are forgotten, wounds are healed, and hearts mended. I say, time is a chance to reflect. To look back at moments that we so carelessly took for granted, while life was passing us by. So many countless moments… Each word, touch, and feeling engraved into our tangled memories.

Memories stored into our minds are easy to retrieve, for they are captured images of the final event: a face, a smile, a place, or a moment. Deeper even, recollections from our hearts reveal the true feelings and thoughts that lead to each point in time. The way I felt when I first glanced upon her spirited smile. For the heart not only recalls that smile, but still feels the exact beat of my heart at that unique moment in time.

As I stand there, allow the curtain of my eyes to gradually fall, and take in a calm soothing breath I find myself easing into a confident serene smile. I am in control of my thoughts, recreating those moments that I hold dear in life. My past is how I imagine it to be, each trial and tribulation either half full or half empty. The facts and history still remain the same for I am in touch with reality, but the narrative is of my choosing. I hope to have the strength to inscribe a script with themes of triumph over adversity, forgiveness despite disappointment, courage overcoming fear, unconditional love regardless of heartbreak, passion outweighing selfishness, and hope shining beyond the storms of doubt.

Often the endless struggle of life boldly challenges us to discover growth in darkness, giving every excuse to point fingers, turn our backs, to disengage. We stumble upon life lessons at unexpected moments, whether or not we learn from them is entirely up to us. The years trickle by regardless. Each stage of life nearly impossible to duplicate, with time comes change. Moments in life can never be recaptured for time can not be reversed, merely remembered.

Chapter One

Forgotten Years

TRY TO REFLECT back to your earliest memories in life. What would those memories be? Maybe your fantasy filled three year old birthday party, your excitingly anxious first day in preschool or kindergarten, or some other powerfully significant event during your childhood is the image that emerges in your mind’s eye. I have always been fascinated with the inner working of the mind. Exceptionally curious about what makes a person think, feel, or act the way they do. I am a constant observer of people and the ever changing environment that surrounds them. Observing not to make plain judgments because I figure what I think of others does not matter much. Who am I to have the audacity to believe a person is one way or another. I simply observe with the goal of gaining greater understanding. I hope by increasing my understanding I may begin to connect in more honest and meaningful ways with others. A significant part of me has a profound longing for others to better understand me, so that I can find that connection and deeper bond. My earliest memories in life do not begin until age five. Any earlier moments of my life are created by well-intentioned hazy stories retold through adoring family members.

LET ME TRY to remember back to my earliest memories. Those vague dim memories bring me back to the days when I would walk with my sisters to the school bus stop early in the frosty winter mornings when we were living in the California Central Valley. For those who grew up in the Mid-East or Northern states, I am absolutely certain thirty degrees Fahrenheit would not at all be considered cold. But considering I was a wiry fragile five years of age, a recent immigrant from a humid tropical Southeast Asia country, and drastically poor; thirty degrees Fahrenheit was plenty cold. What does being poor have to do with being cold? Let’s just say it is difficult to purchase a fluffy cozy warm jacket for less than 5 dollars, even with lower prices in the early 1980’s.

I recall gingerly staggering about ten midsize blocks to the unmarked bus stop each early morning. My protective sisters who slowly marched with me during those blistering cold mornings were all older than me. At the time Loan was age seven, Lien was nine, and Hong was eleven. I will take the time to introduce the rest of my family in later chapters. To do so now would make this first chapter exceedingly lengthy and almost certainly would dreadfully scare away readers. I should reveal that I am the youngest of eleven children in my family. At times it takes me several arduous attempts to recite all the names of my siblings correctly, but most people find it difficult to fault my struggle. Ten names are hard to remember, especially when my interactions with a few of my siblings are limited to merely incomplete stories passed on by my parents.

Try to imagine a five year old walking to a bus stop with his three older sisters every morning to catch a dizzying bus ride to school. This may seem ordinary enough, especially for the early 1980’s, when a significant number of school children were bused to public schools. As I recall back to those exact moments what I recollect most were the dirt fields coated with ice crystals produced from the unbelievable clear morning dew. In the distant background above the horizon of those undeveloped fields were fascinating Sierra Nevada Mountains topped with pristine snow caps. At that time I was too young and naive to appreciate such a stunning natural backdrop that over the years have gone sadly extinct from our irresponsible industrial pollution and relentless urban developments.

The question I am curious to raise is why are these particular images the first remaining memories of my early childhood? From the vague stories that my parents and siblings tell me of my early childhood, much more remarkable and significant moments were experienced. It is fascinating how our complicated brains decide what to record and what not to remember. According to my parents, I am perhaps somewhat lucky that those earlier experiences are merely unclear stories instead of potentially traumatizing memories. On the other hand, my parents often tell me that my forgotten years were not all terrible and ill-fated. Like most childhoods there were moments of adversity and also those moments that are hard not to laugh about when reminiscing.

AT AN EARLY age I was unremittingly ill. My parents described it as some form of measles or pox that left my sensitive skin extremely rash. The thin dark hair on my head had to be shaved clean due to the relentless boils and lesions that painfully grew, like toxic weed in newly cultivated garden. My parents were so concerned about my survival they desperately requested the services of several village herbalist in the hope of unearthing a cure. First it was the repulsive night crawler porridge. Rich in nitrates and protein, it surely was going to be the ideal cure. My tormented mom recalled that the porridge actually tasted appetizing. Of course she tried some before giving it to her youngest ailing son. I am not at all surprised I somehow erased that experience from my memory bank. Like I said before, the brain is brilliant in wisely selecting what it needs to store into memory. When the worm rice soup was declared ineffective another herbalist suggested wrapping my mountainous bald head with a pig’s intestine for several days. Maybe the nutrients from a pig’s intestine could over power and slow down the growth of the puss filled lesions and irritating rashes. I am confident those herbalists were well intentioned with their obscure remedies. I am also certain those remedies appeared successful in their past patients. I just wonder if a placebo would have been just or even more effective. According to my parents, after a few arduous weeks of trying numerous remedies I started to show signs of improvement. I am adamantly sure each self proclaimed herbalist took some credit in putting me back into health.

I suppose provoking stories like these are what make me respect western medication and the research system in the United States. So much, that I considered entering the medical field seventeen years later. If only my selectively indolent brain had the patience and capacity to remember all those facts in my undergraduate bio chemistry classes. I solely blame this on my carelessly affectionate sister, Hong. Hong once told me that when I was about one year old she used to toss me up and down in order to observe my facial expressions change and listen to me giggle as I dangerously plummeted into her arms. I guess even in Vietnam, people enjoyed playing up-sy baby. She alleged the higher I was heaved and gently retrieved the more animated I would delightfully giggle and smile. I must have been absolutely adorable when I giggled and smiled because apparently Hong tossed me up so ridiculously high that I soared over a rotted wooden fence, harshly landing on our parched dirt yard. She recalled witnessing in total anguish, my convulsions with my shady pupils rolled backed behind my fluttering eyelids. For fear of being catapulted over a higher wooden fence by my parents she deliberately notified no one about the incident. So now her playful joke with me is that the reason why I act the way I do when I am a little goofy and animated is because I was thrown over a fence and permanent damage was done. My instant reply to her is what is her excuse for her silly antics and peculiar personality? All kidding aside, I wonder if I would have more cognitive ability if not for that mishap. Maybe I would have been able to be more determined and focused in those exhausting bio chemistry classes and become the medical doctor my parents had desired. I jokingly insisted that my mother blame my reckless sister for my preference to work in mental health instead of the medical field. Of course I know the obvious truth is far from that.

Presumably, I demonstrated signs of not being interested in institutional learning at a very young age. According to my parents, when I was four years old and still living in Vietnam, instead of attending preschool classes I would cunningly ditch with my classmates and take off to steal tropical fruits from the villagers’ yards. Imagine four preschoolers ram sacking private fruit yards for guavas and soursaps. Eventually I was justifiably apprehended by the neighbors. What my parents did next I am relieved my little juvenile brain decided not to permanently store into memory.

I presume my father figured that if at age four I was already ditching school and defiantly stealing from neighbors, how would I be at age ten? He was probably imagining me breaking out of a juvenile detention center and robbing the national bank by then if I was not dutifully taught a lesson. Having worked with the social service system I realize what he did could be considered child abuse. But since we were in Vietnam at the time and I am over eighteen years of age I understand the statute of limitation has expired on his act of abuse. I am free to tell my story of psychological torture at age four without repercussions to my father. I do not begrudge my father for the actions he took at that time. I probably would have done similar if I knew it would teach me a lesson about ditching school and stealing.

As my punishment my father placed me in an old rusty elevated chicken coop located in the side yard, slammed the corroding wired doors tight, and ignited a suffocating fire from underneath. As the thick gray smoke elevated and began enveloping the old chicken coop, I started screaming in terror and begging to be released. I suppose when one is in fear of their life they will say anything to escape that perceived threat. I desperately promised my parents to never steal or ditch school ever again if he was willing to set me free. Little did my father know I had my tiny fingers crossed. But I suppose I learned my lesson as evidence from my clean criminal record and positive achievements in higher education.

I suppose I could have been permanently traumatized by such events, held a lasting grudge at my father for taking such extreme measures and blamed my mother for not protecting me from such an abusive punishment. However, through trust and respect I learned to understand that my parents had good intentions with what they did. The bond created by their early nurturing was sufficient to shelter me from that trauma. I wonder what the critical breaking point is. How often do we cross that thin crucial line when disciplining our children?

I AM PRETTY sure not all my childhood experiences in Vietnam were as visibly traumatic as having a life threatening childhood illness, being tossed over an old fence, or being nearly scorched to death in a chicken coop. Like many children in Vietnam at the time I am sure I scampered freely in the muggy rain during the season long tropical downpours, climbed endless mangrove trees, and amused myself with lots of hand crafted toys during those early years.

How I would love to have vivid memories of those lively Tet celebrations. With the nostalgic smell of incense and freshly cook banh tet captivating a room filled with lucky red envelopes hanging from fortune plants naturally decorated with light pink and soft red blossoms. The contagious sound of honest laughter and cheer from cousins and aunts from all across distant villages colliding into a busy crowded room would ring in anticipation. The dirt floor completely carpeted red with disposed firecracker shells from the midnight festive bang into the Lunar New Year.

I suppose that last Tet in Vietnam would have been bittersweet for my parents. Knowing the revered traditions celebrated for generations would have to give way to an unforeseen future as waves would gradually carry us away from what was familiar, safe, and comfortable to a land of promise, foreign intrigue, and unpredictability. How it must have felt to have kept such a life altering secret from those around you for fear of a spoiled escape?

At the time, thousands of other families had their own dreadful escape secrets to keep, all anticipating each other’s eventual departure, but each fraudulently pretending as if they knew nothing. No one sure if they would see each other ever again, none knowing if they would ever witness the day when they could all look back and laugh at these perplexing moments. But there was no time for true laughter, only carefully crafted smiles in case the neighbors were connected to the Cong San, communist government and deceptive stories of plans to expanding the rice fields next year with little intentions of watching the seedlings even mature enough to reach one’s mud drenched ankles.

These were the convoluted circumstances of the time. For the past ten years of brutalizing reeducation camps, random tax collections, and land seizures have forced actions of limited options. Continue relentlessly struggling day by day in a land where hope continues to be viciously strangled or risk likely death on a journey to a land of limitless opportunity filled with inescapable adversity. These were the dim options. The circumstances of their choices would send tidal waves of impact throughout a land torn by centuries of continuous grueling wars due to struggles in political power and foreign influences.

The decision to escape would make them into boat people. They would join a collection of desperately frantic refugees that will number as many as two million. Three in ten would perish at sea. The lucky few who survived would be scattered across the globe in search for freedom and opportunity. I will attempt to tell the story of my journey to America not as how I remembered it because my mind does not allowed me to recapture those moments in time. Instead, I will retell this story through dialogues that I have had with my parents and siblings, research from history books, and my own recreation of how I imagined it probably happened. My journey would be set in motion in the early morning during the spring of 1981.

WAKE UP CHUT! We are going to grandmother’s house. My older sister Phuong nervously calling me by my childhood nickname, meaning little one