Unquestioned Mystery: Project Proposal
My Life as a Puzzle
My heart aches as I wave goodbye to Papa, waving and waving until I see the grey bucket with his cargo vest being engulfed by the x-ray scanner on the other side of the glass walls. He turns around once and smiles, showing the tiny gap in the middle of his two front teeth which is visible in my mind but not from this distance, before raising his arms as he passes through the airport’s upgraded full-body scanner. I watch him go as I always do, breathe out a sigh of relief as he successfully passes through the scanner as he always does, and watch him disappear behind the taller and bigger passengers on the other side.
I always wait a couple more minutes. I wait for the his little hat, a pseudo beret, to go waving wildly in the air after he finishes putting all his clothes, shoes, and accessories back on. That hat is the signal that everything had gone well, and that he would be soon headed for his designated gate. I jump up as high as I can to wave back, a little hard for a 5' girl, but he always manages to see me somehow.
My mom and I stay at the entrance of the roped lines leading up to airport security check a little while longer before heading out to the escalators that lead down to the parking deck. My uncle’s car awaits us there to perform its duty of driving us back home.
My dad’s destination is always the same: France.
He returns there because that is where our other house resides. Because I was born and raised there for 7 years, I am fortunate enough to have two places I can call home: the one in homely peach-state Georgia, where I currently live, and the one in the peaceful yet vibrant suburbs of Noisy-Le-Grand, France.
“Home is the comfiest place to be” — Winnie the Pooh
I adore this quote by one of my favorite childhood characters, especially since I grew up practically living in Paris’s Disneyland. I dragged my dad to Winnie the Pooh’s theatrical play at Disney so many times that he tells me he virtually has all the actor’s parts memorized. Home, to me, is where both my parents are. It is where I come home speaking to my mom in Vietnamese, telling her about my day, and also where I turn to my dad asking him in French about the day’s dinner menu. I love the feeling of communicating with both my parents in two different languages, and I love how special it makes me feel to each of them. Maybe it is because my mom and dad have always addressed me in their respective tongue, the one most comfortable for them, that I now only like associating one language with that parent. I secretly chuckle mentally when my friends look at me, wide-eyed, when I am on the phone and suddenly do a lightning-quick switch from guttural Vietnamese to smooth French. These two completely different cultures have played such an essential role in my life, from allowing me to understand my mom’s late-night Vietnamese shows to eating delicious homemade strawberry and cream-filled crêpes.
I am eternally grateful to my parents —it is thanks to their love and support that I have come this far. Living with me and tolerating my antics for the last 18 years, they know everything about me (or as much as I choose to tell them nowadays). I recently realized, however, that I don’t essentially know that much about them, or not as much as I could. I only have knowledge of their life from 1998 up to the present, from the moment I was born, up until this very instant. Their past remains a mystery to me, like puzzle pieces lost through the seas that separate North America from Europe and Asia.
Puzzle Piece #1: Where is my dad from?
Haiphong, 1954
The Cassim children (missing the youngest), currently living in north Vietnam under French rule — M. Cassim, head of the family, already has French citizenship.
In reality, my dad and his family are originally from Vietnam, born in its northern port city of Hai Phong. He told me that he moved to France when he was around 4 years old after the end of the Vietnam War, but he never went in depth as to why, and I never asked him for any specifics.
Since he still communicated with his family and siblings in Vietnamese, he kept the fluency of his native language; however, French is much more natural to him since he spent the first three decades of his life primarily there. Like any other true French citizen, he can navigate all the nooks and crannies of the city, from the busy RER train lines to the backstreet alleys of Paris.
Here is a picture taken in France, with three of the siblings and their established families —
To my chagrin, the extent of my knowledge on this side of the family only reaches this far. I have sincerely never questioned nor wondered about their incredible journey, one involving inhabiting and adjusting to a land with a completely new culture and language. Fortunately enough, my dad and his perspective become the crucial clue as well as the magnifying glass I need to to solve this puzzle.
Puzzle Piece #2: Why did my mom move to the U.S before moving to France?
Phu Cuong, 1971
The Nguyen children, currently living in South Vietnam —
My dearest mom was also born in Vietnam, in a northern city next to Saigon called Phu Cung. She and her siblings went to school and yet also made time to help my grandma whenever they could — My mom told me she herself worked in the textile industry for a while to support the family. She recently showed me some of her handmade garments, beautiful shirts made with vibrant colors and patterns. My mom also vaguely told me stories of her father, my grandpa, being an influential figure in the Vietnamese government. He had such dedication to his work and his opinions that he was imprisoned for his political views that clashed against the government’s following the Vietnam War.
When he was alive, my grandpa and I were very close — I remember him giving me rides to after-school activities in his old, rust-colored Honda with its unreliable air-conditioning. I remember that even back then I could tell just from the way he talked about life that he held so much personal experience and knowledge on just about everything: in addition to that, he was fluent in French, Vietnamese, English, as well as Latin. Looking back retrospectively, I wish I had asked him at least once to tell me about his personal life. All I know from the pieces of information that my mom has recounted to me is that after the war ended, the U.S and Vietnamese government cooperated to liberate the prisoners of war. They were released, and their families were allowed to legally emigrate out of Vietnam to the United States. As far as my knowledge goes, my mom moved to America due to this event.
This is a picture taken with four of the five children (and their established families) who were able to emigrate out of Vietnam
Through this project, I want to find out more about the unquestioned mysteries that surround my parents. Contrary to the most commonly asked question I receive,
“Why did you move to America?”
And to which I always give my unfaltering answer,
“We moved here for better educational opportunities,” I want to investigate something else instead, something that amazes me just by the fact that it is a question that has never even once crossed my mind:
Puzzle Piece #3: “Why was I born in France?”
What are the reasons for this specific location?
I have never wondered if my birthplace should have been in Vietnam instead, nor wondered about the push and pull factors that caused my parents to both emigrate out of the country. I have heard bits and pieces from both sides, but never asked to hear the complete story. They gave me enough puzzle pieces to create the framework, but nowhere near enough to see the whole picture. This project sparked my curiosity to dive deep into both of my parent’s separate paths to understand exactly why they moved to different continents when they did. Ultimately, this is important to me because their combined journey and overlapping paths are the ingredients that have shaped my life.
Interview Questions:
As best translated into English as possible! :)
Mom:
- What was your favorite thing to do during your free time in Vietnam?
- What did you dislike the most about living in Vietnam?
- What was your favorite thing to do after you moved to the US?
- Was the trip over to the U.S scary? Describe your experience.
- How did you find a place to live in the U.S after relocating from Vietnam?
- Why couldn’t Bac Quy (oldest sibling) also come over to the U.S? Because he was married? How does that work?
- What was education like in Vietnam compared to the one you received in the United States?
- What was Grandma’s occupation?
- What position did Grandfather have in the government? Can you explain his work and tell me about his political views that caused him to be a prisoner of war?
- What did you and my aunt and uncles do when he was taken in as a prisoner? What were your reactions? How did Grandma react?
- How did you meet dad? (I’ve never asked this question in-depth before)
Papa:
- How did you meet mom?
- How was your wedding? What did you do for mom?
- What was your first impression of Grandpa and Grandma (on mom’s side)?
- How hard was it to move from Vietnam to France suddenly and with no connections? What did you do for shelter, jobs.. etc.
- Tell me about your school life and the hardships you encountered being in a country where you did not know the culture nor language.
- I know you were not initially set for an Education degree — why did you go into a Nursing degree when you started college?
- What made you change your mind from Nursing to Education?
- Were you part of any organization in France?
- Tell me about your parents — what they did for a living in France and their occupation.
- Can you explain the Muslim origins of your names? Can you tell me more about the roots you have in the Middle East?
- I’ve only met four out of my eight uncles and aunts — can you tell me about the others? What are they doing now (occupation, family…)?
- Where did you live in France before we got the apartment we currently have?
- How many times have you gone back to Vietnam?
Working Bibliography
Books on Vietnamese History:
Chan, Yuk Wah. The Chinese/Vietnamese Diaspora: Revisiting the Boat People. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Kolko, Gabriel. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Peace. London ; New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.
Vo, Nghia M. The Vietnamese Boat People, 1954 and 1975–1992. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2006. Print.
Prospective books on re-education camps:
Lu, Van Thanh. The Inviting Call of Wandering Souls: Memoir of an ARVN Liaison Officer to United States Forces in Vietnam Who Was Imprisoned in Communist Re-education Camps and Then Escaped. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997. Print.
Schwartz, Eric., Asia Watch Committee (U.S.), and Committee to Protect Journalists. Still Confined: Journalists in “re-education” Camps and Prisons in Vietnam. Washington, DC : New York, NY: Asia Watch Committee, 1987. Print.
France and Vietnam relationships:
France and Viet-Nam: The Franco-Vietnamese Conflict According to Official Documents. Genève: Éditions du Milieu du Monde, 1947. Print.
Potential Creative sources:
Train to Busan. Dir. Sang-ho Yeon. Perf. Gong Yoo, Kim Soo-Ahn. Seoul Station Film Series, 2016. DVD.
giving up your own future to protect your children/to protect and ensure their future: why did it hit home hard?
(article)
