by Thuy Rocco
The Nail Shop
Despite not being able to read or speak English very well, my mom was able to open two businesses. She was in her forties when she came to America. She went to ESL (English as a Second Language) classes in the refugee camps and continued them for several years in America. A lot of people mocked her and told her that she needed to speak English as she was in America. My mom tried her best to speak English; she spoke enough to survive.
When she was studying for her nail beautician license, I had to help her with every single test question. I would repeat the questions and answers in English so often that she had them memorized. She failed the exam eight times but finally passed the ninth time. When she had an opportunity to open her nail shop, she quit her housekeeping job and her flea market stand. She did hundreds of thousands of pedicures and manicures. My mom would tell us that she washed all the stinky feet so we could go to college.
Odd Jobs
I learned from my mom that I always had to work. I sold sodas in the flea market. I cut my neighbors’ grass to get $10. I bought bags of candy and boxes of candy bars to sell them in the neighborhood. I helped my mom clean houses and served at parties to earn extra cash. All the money I earned I had to give to my mom. She put it in a plastic Cabbage Patch piggy bank. By the age of fourteen, I had saved thousands of dollars. I would get in trouble if I asked for the money, even though it was mine. When I was fifteen, my mom opened a savings account in my name to put all my money in.
In my teenage years, I was old enough to apply for “real jobs.” I worked at a uniform shop, a jewelry shop, a car dealership, and selling vacuums house to house. When I was in college, I taught French and worked summers in retail. My college friends wanted to visit me, but I was too embarrassed to tell them that because I was poor I had to work several jobs in the summer, so I couldn’t hang out with them.
After graduating college, I got a high-paying computer sales job. I saved $40,000 by living with my parents right out of college. I bought my first house with that money. I continued to work for nonprofits, language institutes, and technology companies. On weekends and weeknights, I did graphic design, web design, and rental renovations. I finally understood what my mom was doing. She wanted financial freedom. She wanted to work for herself, for her family. She didn’t want to have to answer to anyone or work for anyone. She worked for her freedom.
I was always working, just like my mom. You will never find her sitting down and relaxing. Even in her seventies, she is sweeping and cleaning. She jogs on the treadmill. She brings food and cleans her children’s houses (without letting them know). That is who she is.
Elementary
When I first came to the United States at the age of five, I did not know any English, much less the American culture. I remember entering elementary school and being ignorant of everything, especially when kids laughed at me or picked on me. I could not understand the language; furthermore, I could not understand why I was so different.
For me, elementary school was a thorn in my heart and soul. In my first ESL class, I sat with three other kids in a portable classroom. I always missed recess in the playground because I had the most difficult time with English. My ESL teacher left me alone with a workbook, and all I did was copy and write sentences over and over again. My teachers were not patient; they would keep me from recess until I had finished memorizing the spellings and definitions of words. I did that for four years of my life at that school, and I did not learn anything. I remember looking at the blisters on my fingers and saying, “I hate this place.”
Chapter 5
Surviving My Mom
Writing about family is like taking a peek behind the curtain before a Broadway show. Behind the darkness, we feel a song full of rhythm, harmony, and intimacy that the audience only begins to know. Each person’s relationship to his or her family is a sketch of a memory and a discovery of the self. When I reflect on the word family, I think of my mother’s gentle face smiling down on me as I wait on a bamboo bridge for her to come home from work. Everything that I did not possess, she gave me; what I know and write about my family is through the window of my mother’s eyes.
THE CALL
Running up and down the trees
Touching the bamboo forest
Food of mud and rocks
I roll down a hill
In a thorn bed
Of red
I catch the light crawling in my hands
Dirty nails I stick in my mouth
My moon on my feet
I pick at it
So black
With a guiding star at the center of my nose
A nice hollow cave under my arm
A healthy forest on my legs
My fingers dance
To wake up now
With a kiss
Of my mother’s lips
The Secret
I didn’t know why my last name was different from my brothers. I didn’t know why I was treated differently by my parents. When I was seven, my mom had a horrible fight with my dad. She sat outside on the steps and I held her hand as she cried. She told me in her tears and anger, “That man is not your father.” These words shocked my whole body and my hands started trembling. She then told me the story of my family—how my dad, brothers, and sister died escaping Vietnam. She told me I was the last one, the last drop of blood. My whole life came crumbling down at that moment. I was in shock.
The next day, my mom had cooled off and said to not worry about what she told me. But I started to look at my life differently. I couldn’t look at my stepdad’s face, but I could feel his sadness. I heard him whisper to my mom, “Why did you tell her all that?” I was too young to fully understand, but I soon realized that all the conflict was because of our blended family.
Chopsticks
Every time my brothers and I argued, my mom would tell me a story about chopsticks. It is a story about a dying father and his three sons. One day, the dying father wanted to reveal his will to his sons. He gave his youngest son his estate, he gave the middle son his money, and he gave his eldest son his life journal. His youngest son and middle son were very satisfied with their inheritance, but his eldest son did not understand what his father left him. Since the eldest son had the responsibility of caring for the younger siblings, he thought it was unfair for the father to leave the estate and money to his irresponsible younger brothers. Well, the three brothers had a great dispute over the inheritance and began to fight with their fists. When the father saw the fight, he stood in the middle of the three brothers and said, “A home without a family is just a piece of wood and straw; a whisper of wind would destroy it. Wealth without meaningful purpose is just a piece of worthless paper and metal; the raindrops of summer would destroy it. Words without wisdom is just a forgotten memory; the glimmer of the sun would destroy it.”
Then the father gave one chopstick to the eldest brother and told him to break it. Of course, the eldest broke it easily. Then the father gave a bundle of chopsticks to the eldest brother and told him to break them, but he could not break the bundle, even with all his might. The father looked at the three brothers and said, “You are just like one of these chopsticks. If you stand alone, anyone can break you. If you stand together, it is difficult for anyone to break you. I gave you each a part of my life: a house to make a home, money to share, and wise words to guide.” After the father said this, he sat on his straw mat, closed his eyes, and died quietly.
Raging Machine
My mom and stepdad argued. The arguments would last hours, even days. Screaming, things breaking, and threats went on and on throughout my childhood into my adult life. As a child, I would often hide in my closet with a pillow over my ears or bury myself under my bed to drown out the screaming. As I got older, I would run to the closest neighborhood park and stay there until sunset. When I came back, there was always a fight waiting for me. I never got used to it. My parents would argue about the most miniscule things—who does which chores, the loud music, who had
said the wrong thing. They always argued about money because there was no trust in their relationship. My mom had her money and my stepdad had his. One day, I heard the glass table in the kitchen smash. The arguments escalated to the point where my mom told me to call the police on my stepdad because he was getting violent. I didn’t want to, because I knew that my mom probably pushed him to the breaking point. Then my mom started yelling at me because I wasn’t following orders. She started saying, “Are you taking his side? Do you know what he has done? Are you doing this to me, too?” Suddenly, my guilt overcame my reasoning and I called the police. I helped my mom file a police report. Deep down, I knew that she wanted that police report in order to blackmail my stepdad somehow. My mom is always surviving, even within her family. She always feels the need to protect herself, to protect me.
Karaoke
Yes, we were one of those typical Asian families with a karaoke machine. The first karaoke machine, my parents bought from a Vietnamese music store and hooked up with a VCR. My parents often had weekend parties where they invited a few Vietnamese friends to eat, drink, and sing drunken karaoke. They sang traditional Vietnamese folk music, which to the outside ear sounds like country music but with a lot more whining and glottal noises. Vietnamese songs are usually sad and sung about the rain, the Vietnam War, broken hearts, and lost loved ones. My parents’ karaoke parties went on and on into the early morning. The volume was always set at full blast and the feedback and echoes were piercing. I would stuff toilet paper in my ears and put my head inside the pillowcase with the pillow suffocating me, so I could drown the noise and possibly sleep.
One night, I walked out to go to the bathroom and found my parents and their friends dancing, but they were so drunk that it looked like they were badly breakdancing on the floor. I thought it was annoying, but for once I saw my parents laughing and having fun, so I just bore it.
For a long time, I thought my mom did not like music. She used to tell my dad and her children to turn the music down or that she didn’t like music. But when I saw her singing karaoke, she seemed to actually enjoy it. She loved to sing. She even got my dad to record her singing the songs on cassette tape, and we would have to listen to them on long drives. My mom said she loved to sing all the Vietnamese gospel songs in church; now that she didn’t go to a Vietnamese church, she could only sing sad Vietnamese songs.
Sacrifices
My mom had a strange way of loving. She would always remind me that she was the only one who really loved and cared for me. She made it seem like we were the only two people in the world. She manipulated me to make sure I would always take her side. If she saw that I was defending my stepdad or my stepbrother, she would tell me that they hated me or did things to sabotage us. She would tell me, “Your stepdad loves your brothers more than you. I am the only one who will truly love you and take care of you. In this world, there is just you and me.”
If my parents had a big argument with each other, my mom would threaten to move away with me. She would tell me how jealous my stepdad was of me because I was smart, pretty, and responsible. My mom buried secret cash boxes around the yard because she was so paranoid, and she would tell me to remember where they were in case something happened to her.
In one of our many screaming arguments, my mom told me, “I would kill whoever hurt you, and I am okay to go to prison. American prison is not so bad.” I thought about what she said and wondered why she didn’t help me when I was molested as a child.
Thief
I was once whipped for stealing. Though it was my brother that stole and it was my money that was stolen, I had around fifteen lashes from a fly swatter. I sat in my room, for I could not walk, looking at the crumpled dollar bill under the cabinet. I remember tears of relief running down my face because I had found the stolen money.
I used to have a small piggy bank that I kept my money in; my parents would keep it, so I would spend the money wisely. We were still very poor then. My brother wanted some cookies, and he decided to “borrow” some money from my piggy bank. My mom thought I took the money without asking them, even though it was my money. My mom was very strict about stealing and lying; she believed that stealing anything, especially money, was stealing from someone’s life. Because my mom believed I was lying and that I took money without permission, she punished me. After my brother saw what happened, he confessed. I remember my mom coming into my room at midnight, crying and saying she was sorry for whipping me; her hands rubbed my wounds with her mixture of tiger balm. I knew my mom had been wrong, and she knew it, too, but I look back on that experience in a good way. After that, I never stole.
Bargain Huntress
My mom is beyond the bargain queen. She is the crouching tiger of negotiating. She once told me, “If I knew English as well as you, I would rule this town.” And I believe her because she had been bargaining since she was a tiny girl in Vietnam.
When she discovered yard sales in America, she became a different woman. She was no longer the poor refugee—now she was able to harness her superpower. She would drive around her wealthy church neighborhood around 6:00 a.m., and while people were putting out their items for the sale, she swooped in like a vulture. I was always so embarrassed about the way my mom bargained that I usually just sat in our old Toyota truck, watching her in case she needed me to interpret something. Her talking voice was always a shouting voice, so I could always hear her.
There was a nice-looking stove at one yard sale that my mom had her eye on. The guy had just dragged it out of his garage and my mom swooped in there and said, “How much, honey?” She learned the word honey from watching too much I Love Lucy and she called everyone honey. The guy looked annoyed, but politely said it was $100. My mom responded, “Too much, honey.” Then she took out her change purse, which had a wad of cash neatly rolled together with a rubberband. Watching from the car, I smiled and thought, this guy has no chance. My mom showed the guy her change purse with the giant roll of cash inside, and she told him, “I only have this money, honey. I give you this whole thing and you give me the stove.” The guy looked at the wad of money, wide-eyed, and nodded yes. Then Mom told him, “First, put in my car.” The guy agreed, and after a few minutes of grunting and sweat dripping down his face, he got the stove into our truck. My mom gave him her roll of dough and stood there as the guy unrolled thirty-three one dollar bills. She smiled and said, “Thank you, honey.” The guy laughed and said, “You got me!” My mom jumped in the truck and turned to me with the biggest grin. “See, you have to be smarter!”
My mom always asked for a discount or found a way to bargain anywhere she went. I remember one time at Walmart, she picked out all the clothes that had missing buttons, a small tear, or a stain. Then at the checkout, she would show the cashier. “Look, honey.” The cashier always gave her a discount. Any time she bought something, she always asked if there was a discount for paying cash.
I accompanied my mom when she bought a Toyota truck. She had already picked out a red Tacoma. As we sat at the sales desk, bargaining, my mom took out a brown paper grocery bag. She unrolled the top and told the sales person, “All I have is fifteen thousand dollars cash.” I almost fainted, realizing she was carrying all that money with her! The sales person shook his head and said that the truck cost more. My mom told him to ask his manager or else she would leave. He reluctantly went to the back office. When he returned, he sighed and said, “Okay.” When we were about to sign the paperwork, there were taxes and some fees in addition to the cost of the truck. My mom was not going to budge. She said that that was all the cash she had and she was just going to walk away. Somehow, my mom got away with that, too. The dealership agreed to absorb the taxes and fees. My mom merrily walked away. I turned back to look at the brown bag of money sitting on the desk and just couldn’t believe it.
Never Good Enough
I sought perfection in everything I did because no matter how good or how successful I was, my mom said that it wasn’t good enough. She said, �
�Look at yourself in the mirror, Thuy. You are Vietnamese and a girl. You have to work a lot harder and be a lot smarter to win here.”
When I got my first honor roll certificate, I remember throwing it in the trash can. My schoolfriend dug through the trash to get it and asked me why I had thrown it away. I told her I didn’t know what it was because I had never been given an award for anything and didn’t know what the piece of paper meant. She told me, “Thuy, this is important; you should take it home and show your parents. You made good grades.” I took it home and threw it away there because I knew my mom would not know what it was, and she couldn’t really read the certificate.
A piece of paper didn’t help us be less poor, so it really didn’t matter to me. I wanted to learn because I had the self-motivation to take care of my family in the future. It was inherent in me from the time my mom carried me through war, death, and the refugee camps.
My teachers worried because my parents never showed up for my award ceremonies. I couldn’t understand why that would be important because I knew they had to work so we could have food on the table. That is survival.
One of the few times I saw my mom extremely proud was when I graduated high school as valedictorian. I wrote my speech in English and Vietnamese. When I spoke Vietnamese to the audience, I saw my mom stand up proudly in the audience with her arm and fist in the air. She had the largest grin on her face and tears in her eyes.
Game
My mom’s Vietnamese instincts never left her. She loved going fishing at a nearby dam. On the way home from one of those fishing trips, she spotted a deer crossing the street. Most people would try to swerve to miss the deer to avoid damage to the car. My mom did not. She sped up intentionally to hit the deer. The deer did not die, so she backed the truck up and hit it again. That time, the deer did not survive. We were on a highway that ran through Belle Meade, a very rich community. How can a hundred-pound, four-foot-ten woman lift a full-grown deer into her truck? That’s no problem for my mom because she flagged down a passerby to help.
