Where I am From Bridgitte Thao Inspired by George Ella Lyons I am from bouncing maroon minivans, from Kool & The Gang CDs and outhrown hands, wrists covered in bruising and beautiful hair bands. I’m from the blue house on the East Side — messy, angry, rarely content, but all mine — filled with the pungent scent of pho (the spicy kind). I’m from the river of tears fashioned by my family, the summertime storms of my parents’ calamity: rumbling, stuffy, tornadoes — then, a famine of a loveless home and a resilient, lonely breed. Passed from my father to my mother to me, his American name, Bert, and her name, Min. I’m from the desperate and painful and guilt-ridden, the painfully isolated children, their hopes still hidden. From “Crying won’t save you,” and emotion forbidden to an explosive “Say sorry!” even when I didn’t do it, I’m from the constant worry I will lose it: my will to live, to go through it, excuse it the cards I was dealt and the grief I share. Once upon a time, I used to pray into the night air, whisper my wishes and dreams into where the stars beckoned and twinkled like Heaven, a distant place I can only imagine with a pen and paper. I used to fold paper for my grandpa in the heavens — crinkly, golden paper for his afterlife currency, paper that, glistening like honey, rumbled my tummy, because even with WIC, we were still hungry. I’m from Saint Paul, Laos, and China frozen meals for dinner and sometimes beans on china. Even to this day, I still spend time trying to find a snack that is sweet and crunchy, a savory salty munch that can save me from this life that keeps depriving me of the fleeting warm memories I have. I am from the birthdays where I cut cake in halves, doling them out like gold coins for my siblings to attack, springing like lions onto antelope, cheetah pursuing gazelle, the cake our shared hope in a home that felt like hell. I am from the family movie nights where I sat quietly in the tattered sofa corner, satisfied that, at least here, there would be no combat. I would look at the pictures hanging from our walls, dotting the wallpaper like apples on trees meters tall, missing a love I never had at all. I am from the futures I imagine in my head, from the dreams I create at my desk and in my bed. I am from the wish to be freely loved until I am dead. (Awarded Gold by Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards)

My dad never let me have any fun. At least, that’s what I thought when he refused to sign me up for karate. See, eight-year-old me didn’t realize how flat-out broke we were; we had always shopped with food stamps and gotten free lunch from school, so I assumed we had some money leftover. One summer, my dad broke the news that we could become homeless due to some missed payments on our house. There goes karate… I thought. Even though we never became homeless (and eventually moved to the suburbs), my family still couldn’t afford the extracurricular activities I saw my peers going to after school. Instead of tennis or robotics on Wednesdays, I found myself in my room, voraciously paging through books from the library. After a while, I opened a blank document on my second-hand laptop and began typing away, inspired by the novels I devoured. My writing never amounted to much--only a few publications and one check--and I eventually shut my laptop for good. However, during an especially tumultuous period of my home life (one where my parents screamed nightly, where my siblings scurried into my room for solace), I opened that familiar white document and began typing away once more. This escape allowed me to channel the frustrations and hardships that cluttered my mind onto paper, giving birth to a body of poetry that explored my self-identity, my family's poverty, and my hopes for the future. Eventually, I began submitting my works for awards. Although I highly doubted my ability to win anything significant, the feedback I had received from close friends of mine motivated me to try anyway. One of my best friends, after reading a poem I had recently penned, told me that my poem was like looking in a mirror. She told me how reading this piece about generational burdens and living in poverty was extremely relatable, and how she had never related to art on such an intimate level. Since my first brushes with poverty--including late-night grocery stops, food stamps in hand--I had always felt like an "outsider" in spaces where one's socioeconomic status could be inferenced, if only one looked closely. Field trips, school clothes, and even pencil brands always stuck out to me as litmus tests for how poor my family was. However, I was too busy figuring out ways to disguise my poverty that I never bothered to observe and single out those who shared my family's thrifty shopping habits or do-it-yourself haircuts. I never bothered to connect with others who lived as I lived. And, when I started writing poetry, I never bothered to utilize that platform to create more connections--specifically with those who might also be seeking a way out, but who may not have the means to be exposed to poetry. Ever since showing my friend my poem, I've become inflamed to overcome poverty for the sake of uplifting others through the same means that kept me going: art. While I haven't sold millions of copies of poem books or won the Nobel Prize for literature, poetry has saved my life. It was a safe haven during a time my family felt like it was falling apart. It was my favorite pastime when I couldn't afford to explore my interests. It was a bridge that connected me more deeply to my friend, and hopefully, it will act as a bridge for more readers of mine. The thought of providing others with poetry workshops and creating arts-oriented community programming in the future is ultimately what is guiding me through my life as I make educational and professional choices. As I continue into college admissions season, plagued by reminders that being from a low-income family disadvantages me more than I could know, I push through. I push forward because I know that once I emerge from high school, from college, from law school, there will still be little girls desperate to take karate classes with the budget of my eight-year-old self. I know that art saved me, and it can save them too.

Where I Am From Inspired by George Ella Lyon I am from bouncing maroon minivans, from Kool & The Gang CDs and outhrown hands, wrists covered in bruising and beautiful hair bands. I’m from the blue house on the East Side — messy, angry, rarely content, but all mine — filled with the pungent scent of pho (the spicy kind). I’m from the river of tears fashioned by my family, the summertime storms of my parents’ calamity: rumbling, stuffy, tornadoes — then, a famine of a loveless home and a resilient, lonely breed. Passed from my father to my mother to me, his American name, Bert, and her name, Min. I’m from the desperate and painful and guilt-ridden, the painfully isolated children, their hopes still hidden. From “Crying won’t save you,” and emotion forbidden to an explosive “Say sorry!” even when I didn’t do it, I’m from the constant worry I will lose it: my will to live, to go through it, excuse it the cards I was dealt and the grief I share. Once upon a time, I used to pray into the night air, whisper my wishes and dreams into where the stars beckoned and twinkled like Heaven, a distant place I can only imagine with a pen and paper. I used to fold paper for my grandpa in the heavens — crinkly, golden paper for his afterlife currency, paper that, glistening like honey, rumbled my tummy, because even with WIC, we were still hungry. I’m from Saint Paul, Laos, and China frozen meals for dinner and sometimes beans on china. Even to this day, I still spend time trying to find a snack that is sweet and crunchy, a savory salty munch that can save me from this life that keeps depriving me of the fleeting warm memories I have. I am from the birthdays where I cut cake in halves, doling them out like gold coins for my siblings to attack, springing like lions onto antelope, cheetah pursuing gazelle, the cake our shared hope in a home that felt like hell. I am from the family movie nights where I sat quietly in the tattered sofa corner, satisfied that, at least here, there would be no combat. I would look at the pictures hanging from our walls, dotting the wallpaper like apples on trees meters tall, missing a love I never had at all. I am from the futures I imagine in my head, from the dreams I create at my desk and in my bed. I am from the wish to be freely loved until I am dead.

As a five-year-old, the nights my dad was away, I pictured him sitting on our ivory white sofa in the house on the East Side. His head would be thrown back, his cheeks flushed from laughter, and his finger pointing at a faceless person who has just said something hilarious. That vision would calm me to sleep. Now, though, when I try to conjure an image of my father, all I see is a quiet man. An aged man, whose every thought -- even those he desires to speak out loud -- must be contained to his mind, a man who sits and waits for life. Now we move through this house as if we were strangers. As a nine-year-old, I glimpsed the worst of my dad; I saw him enraged, tanned skin peeling from a weekend at the Dells, the heat of summer fanning the flames that sparked each time my parents argued. Once again, he had his finger pointed, though this time it was at my mother. She was heavily pregnant at the time, and my grandfather had just passed away. I didn’t know it then, but soon, my mother would give birth and my grandmother would leave this world. All I knew at that time, at that moment where I caught my father yelling into my mother’s face, was that I didn’t know what to do. As soon as they had started screaming at each other, I heard loud crashes and heavy thumping reverberating through the floor. My father had never hit my mother before, but I was still terrified. Their voices filled my ears, louder than thunder, deadlier than lightning. My sister ran to me, asking me to help. I was the eldest. I should know what to do. But I didn’t. Suddenly, my mother shrieked, begging me to call the police. I froze. I didn’t want to. They would take my dad away. I ran to the living room, catching my parents at each other's throats. My mom’s face was reddened, as it was during and after an argument with my dad, and her hair stuck to her face, as did the wet streaks left behind by tears. My father was yelling at her, and I don’t remember why anymore, but the next words he uttered, I have burned into my memory. My father struggled to speak; he visibly shook, before he managed to yell, “You’re a piece of shit!” to my mom. She didn’t speak English, so she just mocked him and cried in his face. Before I could see them hurt one another anymore, I ran to my room and cried. A few days later, I remember approaching my dad. He just told me, “Your mom is going to kill me one day. She’s giving me high blood pressure.” Then why don’t you tell her, I thought. About two years ago, my dad asked my mom for money to help pay off his debt. He had flighted from school to school in the last ten years, hoping to earn another bachelor’s degree and get into pharmacy school. Luck had not been on his side, though… My mom, feeling betrayed by infidelity (and also finding him untrustworthy) denied him. Thinking we, the children, were better equipped to ask our mom for the money, my dad sat us down and explained to us revenue, profit, costs, etc. before imploring us to beg our mom to lend our dad twenty thousand or so dollars from her own savings account. At the time (and still to this day), my mom pays for everything (except the trash). She owns her own dress shop where she employs only herself and has managed to keep her job for a decade now despite her limited English and a husband who dipped in-and-out of unemployment. She thought if she did give him her money, my dad would take it, throw some of it at the foreign girls in his inbox, and wastefully spend it. Things were like this at my house: my dad would want something -- usually expensive and/or large --, buy it without consulting my mom, and expect my mom to not raise a brow. For almost two decades now, my parents have been in this marriage where direct, verbal communication is absent. It tainted my childhood; for so long, I felt emotionally neglected because no one validated my feelings. No one validated anyone’s feelings! My only sanctuary was my diary, whose pages were so tear-stained because they were the only places I felt safe. I have yet to overcome this emotional stunting, but I am working on getting better at open communication: I write letters to my siblings during chaotic weeks, praising their resiliency and hard work. I encourage them over and over, hoping that they will receive the validation I never got as a nine-year-old standing between my mother and my father and the police.

My favorite part about being the eldest child? Simple. Wait, I can’t think of anything. Nevermind… Actually, I really like being the eldest because I’m the “glue” keeping everyone together: I try and maintain peace, hold my siblings accountable, help them do chores, and teach them to love it. I hold their handlebars as they’re learning to ride without training wheels, and I wake up in the mornings my mom is gone to make their meals. I write them little notes and never let them give up hope. When tornado sirens blare, I bring them calmly down the stairs, and stroke their sweaty, matted hairs. I love seeing them smile when all of our troubles melt away when they can finally pedal without faltering. Of course, there are days when I am bone-tired and feel the dying embers of my inner-fire. But I suck it up, because who else will teach them, if not me? Approaching all walks of life like a big sister is very helpful, especially when you’re called upon to register voters for the 2020 elections with MoveOn. Initially, my gig was pressing the “Enter” key three hundred or so times. Out of the thousands of texts I send every day, I would only get a few replies. But, there were days when someone would ask, “Why should I vote for Joe?” or offer a “Socialism sucks!” A couple of people even flipped me off emoji-style. That reminds me of a certain person living in my house who reacts that same way when I ask them to help with the dishes… Sometimes, I would try to understand their point of view. Nine times out of ten, it was hopeless, and all they would say is, “MAGA 2020!” But the few times I convinced someone to vote blue, I was hit with that same feeling of being the eldest and seeing my siblings succeed: a mix of pride because they’re going in the right direction (they’re voting for someone and an administration that will give Americans a fighting chance to restore democracy!) but a hint of fatigue, because this line of work is demanding. Of course asking voters for months on end if they’re registered, voting Democratic, and if they have a plan for turning in their ballot is exhausting. But again, did I not secure a vote that has (somewhat) stabilized the American experiment? And of course, making sure everyone is tuning into virtual classes can get tiresome, but don’t I want my siblings to succeed? Communal engagement can be draining, but seeing the reapings of the seeds I’ve sown rejuvenates me ten-fold. If Joe Biden had lost the election, my family and I would have been somewhat safe, but what about the undocumented families? What about the openly queer, non-traditional families? Or the ones with darker skin and twisted hair? If I do not help my baby sister with her first-grade math now, how will she know what to do in second grade and beyond? I like to tell this to my siblings in times they try to escape the menial chores I’ve assigned them: this is not just about you. Of course, you will feel uncomfortable for five, six minutes, but your day will go on. If I don’t wash the three dishes in the sink before you do, then when you’re finished eating, you must wash three other plates and yours. Would you like me to abandon my tasks the same way you do with yours? Try and make everyone’s life a little easier, even if yours is the tiniest bit hard for thirty seconds. Of course, this childish example can have difficulty being translated into the real world, but I firmly believe that everyone is obligated to chip into their community because, that way, everyone’s life gets a little bit easier, and we can all work to lift each other up.

I'm proud to be a woman because I have endured. Endured endless sexism, racism, financial barriers, loneliness, cruel words, and all the hurt that comes with this feminine gaze. I'm proud to be a woman because I wear the face of a woman who too has endured. My Instagram is @notbridgitte and my Twitter is @tridgitte.