Alone | Con Yêu Mẹ by Viviann Do

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

I used to think of how lonely I was Going to school and being so different from everyone else. Now I think of how lonely she must have been Living in a foreign country so different from her own.

My mom had it all in Vietnam A steady job Loving siblings And a sweet xe₄ Honda.

But one day, in 1997, she left it all To join her husband in the United States Because she dreamed of a better life for herself And her future family.

How could I be so mean to her? How could I push her away at every chance I could, When her own country had already pushed her away? When she willingly uprooted her life for me, before I had even entered it?

And so I think, How alone we both were In that little white suburb. “Hai mẹ con₅.” I’m so afraid to lose her. 3

Translations ₄: a popular moped in Vietnam ₅: Just a mother and her daughter