My name is Solomon. I
was born in Dalat, Vietnam in May of 1979. As a first born son I was
one lucky kid whom got all the attention and love from both sides of my
parents' family. I moved to Saigon when I was at the age of 6 and
have had an interesting childhood. I was raised in a very strict family
and so I was always a good little boy. I remember one time when I was
about 8 years old, I went over to my friends place after school until 5pm
without letting my parents know ahead of time. I came back home and
without asking for what reason I went over to my friend's place, my mom
gave me a good spanking. There were a few times I got spanked though
it wasn't completely my fault. I was playing outside with some of
the neigborhood kids and this one kid started calling me names. I
don't remember his name but he was a mixed kid (I think he was mixed with
Vietnamese and African). He was jealous of me because most of the
kids in the neigborhood would hang out with me and not with him so
he took his anger out on me. Anyways, words were exchanged a bit in
between us and eventually a fight broke out. I was forced by my father
to take karate lesson at the time so I knew a few good moves..hehe. I
kicked his ass!! He went home and told his grandma then she came over
and told my mom. My mom called me and scold at me in front of the
old lady and I got a good spanking after she left. Mom's reason was
that no matter who initiated the fighting I was involved in it so it was
also my fault. She has taught me to control my temper and and if I
was to ignore that kid there wouldn't be a fight. So after that incident,
I have never gotten myself into another physical fight until this day.
My family of four resided to America in August 1991 when
I was about 11 years old. We left everything behind and came to the
US with two thousand dollars. We thought that was going to be enough.
How naive we were. People that have went over to America before
us wrote back to their families and said that everything in the US is so
cheap and that as soon as you came, other people will give you clothes and
all your needs. Right, right, right!!! Anyways, our lives were
hard. My aunt, the only one in both sides of the family that lives in America
until us, let us stay at her house for about 2 weeks. She then found
an apartment in this ghetto area in East San Diego for us to stay after that.
My dad found some low paying jobs and went to school to become a medical
assistant since he was the only one in the family that knew how to speak English.
Mom went to a little school nearby where they teach English for foreigners.
I hate buses though they were our legs at the time because we didn't
have a car. But those days of running from bus after bus under the
sun have turned buses into my enemies. Dad was sweating while reading
the directions on which bus to take next, while mom was sitting down on
the groud to gasp for air. My little brother was crying and complaining
because he was too tired and thirsty. Our clothes mostly were given from
churches that people donated besides a few pieces that we have brought over
from Vietnam. My aunt was rich, she lived in a big house in one of
the richest area in San Diego yet she would rather drove us around from church
to church to ask for donation stuff instead of buying us some. Though
it's sad to think back about it but at the time those things that were given
to us meant so much. One time, this church gave us two big, black,
trash bags of clothes. Dad brought it home, mom, my little brother
ran to the door jumping up and down of joy. Dad tried on some old shirts
and commented that they fitted him right and mom would say that they looked
good on him. My brother and I would go through the piles of clothes
to look for stuff that we could fit in. It was like winning a lottery
at our house if we found some not too old stuff that we could use.
A few months went by, then a year, things got a lot better
for us. Mom met some Viet ladies around her age and became friends
with them. Taking their advices she went to a cosmetology school a
few miles away from our place. It was sad to see mom walked to school
almost everyday, came back home then had to walk to the English school around
6pm again. Seeing that she had no time so I tried to help mom out as
much as I could at my age. While mom and dad went to work I stayed home
with my little brother and watch him. I cooked, I cleaned, and did
whatever I could around the house when my brother and I are home after school.
Every other nights when mom and dad don't have school, the whole family
would walk over across the street to Kmart to look around. And that
was our way of spending quality times as a family. It was good. It
was fun. Everyone of us enjoyed it.
I started 7th grade as soon as school starts in September.
It was hard at first because I didn't know any words of English besides:
hello, how are u?, I'm fine..thank you..and u?.. oh, apple and teacher.
I thought those Vietnamese kids were born in the US would be nice to
me because I am also Vietnamese..wow..I was so wrong!! They wouldn't
talk or even look at me at all unless the teacher asked them to translate
something for me. They would translated English into Vietnamese and
yet, 60% of what they said was English. It was up to me to guess the
rest for myself. They would hang out with and eat with other White
kids during lunch and I would just sat and ate by myself at some corner.
I was an outcast, so lonely and I felt unwanted. Back in Vietnam
I had many friends and I was wearing clothes that were made for just me (and
I had many of them too). But here in the US, I had to wear donated clothes,
ate on sale food and never had any money at all to spend for lunch. Luckily
I got free lunch from the goverment. My parents said that they came
over to America for my brother and I. Living in America will give us
brighter futures. Because of this I was determined to not disappoint
them. Starting 8th grade, I made straight A's throughout High School.
Well, there were a few B's to be exact.
To Be Continue.
