The journey to find the roots of a Vietnamese-American girl

Lost in American society with mixed blood, Sasha Mai came to Vietnam, where she loved and felt she belonged.

Born into a family with a father who served in the US Marine Corps and a mother who was a Vietnamese immigrant, Sasha Mai felt from a young age that she was different from the people around her.

"We had strange names, different hair and eye colors, so when we left home, we automatically considered ourselves different," Sasha, 32, told VnExpress about her childhood in a small town where residents were mostly white, about an hour's drive from San Diego, California.

To help her children integrate into life in America, Sasha's mother did not teach Vietnamese language and culture to her and her siblings. The family only occasionally watched Asian movies and went to Little Saigon once a year to visit their grandmother.

When Sasha was in school, racism became a major issue. In the school cafeteria, the rows of tables with Asian students were called the “Great Wall of China.” Sasha was even threatened with physical violence for “hugging a black girl.”

"Life in America is like a mixed salad. The 50 states are 50 regions with different cultural characteristics. Some areas are very open, but some places are very segregated, including the town where I grew up," she said. "Back then, blacks played with blacks, Mexicans played with Mexicans, and the rest were white students."

Witnessing several school riots related to racial issues, the Vietnamese-American girl felt increasingly out of place.

“All I could do was bury myself in my studies. I wanted to be accepted at school, and the only way I could feel that was to be recognized by my teachers,” Sasha said.

Achieving good academic results, always being one of the top students at school, but the question "who am I?" still haunts Sasha everywhere, making her gradually realize that burying herself in studies "is just a way for me to escape".

Things changed when Sasha transferred to Boston University in the eastern United States. Before enrolling, she was so worried and obsessed with not having friends that she googled “How to make friends with white people.”

Sasha Mai at the graduation ceremony for her master's degree in global policy at the University of California San Diego, USA, in 2016. Photo: Facebook/Sasha Mai

She was surprised and relieved to see that the dormitory was full of Asian international students and friends from Vietnam, who treated her very sincerely.

In 2009, Huy, a Vietnamese classmate, invited Sasha to visit her home during winter break. She agreed, spending $1,500 of her waitressing savings to buy a plane ticket to Vietnam, her mother’s homeland, a place she had no idea would change her life.

Vietnam appeared so beautiful when she first came here. Huy arranged for her to find a place to stay and invited her to his house to experience Vietnamese Tet customs.

"It was also the first time I felt like I belonged. It was a strangely warm feeling, hard to describe, because I had never felt so lost before, even in the place I called home," Sasha said.

In 2015, Sasha came to Vietnam for the second time, interning at a European consulting firm in Hanoi on FDI capital. After graduating from graduate school, she came to Vietnam for the third time, then decided not to return to the US.

She stayed in Vietnam to work in the supply chain, while improving her Vietnamese, because she found that "people here are very caring and supportive", even for people with different appearances like her.

A neighbor noticed that Sasha lived alone and had difficulty adjusting to her new life, so she often helped her and invited her to eat with her family. "She even helped me move to a new place and always treated me like family. We are still close friends to this day," Sasha said.

In 2020, Sasha founded a trade consultancy, supporting factories in Southeast Asia to import high-quality machinery from Europe. She also cooperates with partners to promote and market Vietnamese technology products to the world.

"It's crazy. Even my stuff is still in California. Some mixed-race people like me feel lost in American society, and that's when we start exploring the world," Sasha said.

Life in Vietnam for her is never boring, always in constant motion. Over the years, Sasha has participated in many social activities and is currently the administrator of the largest online group for foreigners in Ho Chi Minh City.

"People here value friendship and connection with loved ones. The most important thing is that I no longer feel lost in the community, having to work hard to be accepted, but can confidently 'live like a normal person'," she laughed.

Sasha Mai sits on a cruise on the Saigon River to welcome New Year's Eve 2023. Photo: Minh Tam

Returning to her hometown a few months ago, Sasha said life here has gradually changed with the appearance of more and more immigrants, making the living environment more friendly to Asians.

But in the long term, she still plans to start a family and continue her career in Vietnam. "I want my children to grow up here, so they have roots, friends, understand Vietnamese culture and history, and no longer have to constantly ask themselves 'who am I, where do I belong?'", Sasha said.

Duc Trung

Source link: https://vnexpress.net/hanh-trinh-tim-ve-nguon-coi-cua-co-gai-lai-viet-my-4609841.html