Sunset Media Wave is a Bay Area Community Resources program located at the Sunset Neighborhood Beacon Center in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district. We are funded by the SF Department of Children Youth and Families (DCYF), the California Arts Council (CAC), and private donations. All of our partners believe in the transformative power of the arts and its potential to elevate, challenge, and nurture our community.
Here Lai’s Our Truth: Hoa
Angeline Vo
“[I] never had a desire to look for him.”
It’s been 36 years since I came from Vietnam, I was ten years old. Growing up in Vietnam was not a good experience… I felt like an outsider because I was Mỹ Lai , the kids in school and my neighbors were not nice to me. I do not have good memories growing up there.
I met the qualifications to come to the US because my father was a soldier, “Gieng Con Lai,” they called it. It was an adjustment when my mother and I arrived. We didn’t speak a word of English. We didn’t know anything about the culture and we didn’t know anybody here. We found a Vietnamese association and met some friends and that’s how our lives began in the U.S. We had to go to school to learn English and the American culture. I consider America as my home.
I’ve never met my real father and never had a desire to look for him. I still have family back in Vietnam, I do go back there to visit but I would not want to live there. I made a life for me in the U.S. and I prefer to live and die here.
I would like to thank “Cô Hoa” for sharing her story. She has chosen to remainanonymous, and tell her story under a pseudonym. Thank you for sharing your story and giving a different Mỹ Lai narrative. This shows us how diverse the community is.
See Also
Paper Alien: How I Create my Drawings
Everett Gaffney – Fried Signal
Feeling Nostalgic: Rose-tinted
Double Take: First Steps in Covering a Song