Asian American Levi Vo

I’m surrounded by smiles and arms that reach out, wrapping me in their warmth; with soft voices that ring out like bells, and claims of knowing what it feels like. But how… how could you possibly know?

If I’m with people that feel so much like me, why does loneliness lock around my throat like a choker I can’t get off and threaten to suffocate me? What makes me so different? Is it the shape of my face, the language I can barely speak, the food I never mention, the cat and dog jokes that follow me like a shadow that light can’t fight away, or maybe… maybe, it’s the Where are you really from?s.

And as I tiptoe on the tightrope of cultures, two lives sit on my shoulders; the weight forming bruises that spread like ink, that threaten to tip my balance and throw me down to the ground, one side or the other.

Face after face swirls by, pulling me to the right, pushing me to the left.

Will I be Asian or American today? Which will please you more? Maybe one day, I’ll be able to fall… fall, down to the middle, that is Asian-American.

Levi Vo, Grade 8 Anoka Middle School for the Arts, Anoka Teaching Artist: Frank Sentwali