Black April. April 30, 1975. The Fall of Saigon. For me, Black April means something different from what it means to my parents. I was born after the Viet Nam War so obviously I never experienced Black April myself. But it still affects me in so many ways for this one simple fact: it is the reason why I was born in America.

My parents fled from Viet Nam in 1979 and lived in the refugee camps in the Philippines until they were brought to America in 1982. They were sponsored to live in the cold snowy state of Michigan, and I was born in the city of Saginaw in 1984, my sister in 1985. But my parents never saw snow in their lives, and Michigan was full of it. So we packed all of our belongings into a big brown van and made our first cross-country road trip when I was just a year old down to sunny Southern California to live in a place that is unofficially called the capitol of Viet Nam outside of Viet Nam: Little Saigon of Orange County.

My parents finally found a place that resembled their homeland: the nice warm sun, the long stretches of beaches, and most importantly, an entire community of Vietnamese Americans, people who have gone through the exact same experience my parents did.

But of course, it was far from being the promised land. Due to the traumatic experiences my parents went through as victims of war, as boat people, and as refugees, my parents struggled so hard to just survive. Black April is the reason why I grew up in Orange County, and it is also the reason why my parents got into so many fights when I was a child. America, the land of the free, home of the brave, the land of opportunity. It was also the land of an empty house when I came home from school because my parents spent long hours at their work just to make enough money to live, the land of broken dishes my parents threw to the ground after every argument for reasons I didn't understand back then, and of course, it is also the land of my identity crisis. Why am I here in the US? What am I doing here? How come I don't feel like I belong in America, but neither in Viet Nam? What does it feel like to belong?

I never experienced Black April for myself, but I heard it from the mouth of my father as he was left speechless because he didn't know how to answer my questions, difficult for him to relate to the problems my sister and I had while growing up in a country he doesn't understand. I saw Black April in the eyes of my mother, tired and weary after a very long day at the sewing factory, everyday. I saw Black April on the tv screens when I wished my family was like the wholesome fun ones you see on those shows. And I felt Black April as a void in my gut when I had no one to tell me the the answers to my biggest questions: What is to be Vietnamese? What does it mean to be Vietnamese?

There were no easy answers to the many questions I posed to myself and others, and even right now I'm still answering it, bit by bit. Maybe there really is no quick and easy one. Instead, as I grew up I realized that answering these questions was a process that we all must go through, to find the answers for ourselves. And I began doing that when I realized that I don't need to worry about being Vietnamese. To be Vietnamese is just to be. How can you be something that you already are? Every day we are Vietnamese, from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep. What does it mean to be Vietnamese? There's so many answers to that question, and we each will find our own way to answer it through our lives. For me, it means remembering where I came from, who I came from, and how. Remembering who helped me be who I am today, and honoring my heritage, history, and culture. I honor it by helping to preserve the little bit that I know and teaching others.

I believe that this is the challenge that Black April gives me. Not only must we commemorate our history, we must also help guide others who were just as lost as I was, as I'm sure many of you were, to help them on that path of knowledge of self, heritage, and culture. Just like they say, it takes a village to raise a child. for me, the entire Vietnamese Community of Little Saigon, made up of my parents, my sister, my relatives, friends, and colleagues, they raised me as their son. Since Black April is the reason why so many of us are here in America, to commemorate Black April is to also commemorate our lives, and celebrate it, as Vietnamese Americans.


Note: I was only given two days to write this speech for the Black April Commemoration event in New Orleans that's gonna happen in a couple hours, so there is a lot of stuff I couldn't include. It's not as inspirational or motivational as I'd like it to be, but given the time I was given to write it, I think I did a pretty damn good job =P

So I'm finally leaving California in two weeks, on April 3rd. After my gig at UMass, the good Minh from VAYLA-NO is flying me down to New Orleans on April 7th. I'll be staying until April 28th, when I'll be flying back to California to pack up the rest of my belongings in my car and drive across the country to relocate to New Orleans.

Pretty damn crazy huh? CAN'T WAIIIT!!!

I just got booked for a gig at University of Mass. at Amherst for Asian Night, and it's gonna be a 1000+ audience! I'm sweating bricks right now, but man if I can go there and spit some hawt ass fire, then holy shit it's gonna be the best thing that's happened to me!

So thus begins my training to be the best fukkin' vietnamese spoken word artist in the country. Anybody got some tips?