Alone | Con Yêu Mẹ Viviann Do
I was mean to my mother growing up.
But who could blame me?
Because I was an only child with a helicopter mom.
She packed me lunch with nước mắm₁ and đồ chua₂
that I ate in front of my white classmates.
She scolded me in public in broken English
whenever I was playing with my friends.
She followed me everywhere, to birthday parties, field trips, and the movies.
I was mean to my mother growing up.
But now I blame me.
Because she was a stay-at-home mother with 1 daughter.
Her husband was at work all day
And the rest of her family was 8,066 miles away.
Her closest friend was me
And a middle-aged Vietnamese woman next door.
She spent years watching soap operas while she lặt râu₃-
And she couldn’t drive a car.
Translations
₁: fish sauce
₂: pickled vegetables
₃: peeled the vegetables
