Vietnam. Before I was five, I was Vietnamese. When my family addressed me, I could reply in a fluent and pure Siagon dialect. I was still unexposed to English, and my language suggested I had just emigrated with my family from Vietnam.

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It’s raining. Along a muddy path, I’m amidst the blurry shade of wispy trees, wandering on the edge of a fleeting canopy. Though the trees offer a safe cover, I sometimes drift to the unsheltered and wistful air to be among the crying skies and kissing monsoon.

Before I was five, I was Vietnamese. When my family addressed me, I could reply in a fluent and pure Siagon dialect. I was still unexposed to English, and my language suggested I had just emigrated with my family from Vietnam. But I was born in America. My culture, my homeland, my family’s struggled past – I’ve seen glimpses of them from black and white photographs, old videos, and sometimes, stories that I felt were my own. But those memories were only broken frames, flashes of a life that I was supposed to live.

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I’m reconstructing those once broken frames in District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City during my return to Vietnam. As a start, I relearn my broken language at the homes of my father’s parents, brothers, and sisters. My lessons are similar to when my mother was teaching me English 13 years ago. However difficult, I prefer the expressive tonal peaks and valleys of Vietnamese over the flatness of English. Sometimes, my aunt – my teacher and I walk from my grandparent’s home to her classroom; each location is no bigger than the size of my room in America. I don’t ...

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