Names are deeply personal and also public. We choose names for our children with love. To misuse a name as a taunt or to willfully misunderstand a name can be traumatizing and hurtful to people in our communities. Let’s welcome unusual names with curiosity and openness, and also respect people if they choose to change their names.
Inspired by the poem “Day of the Refugios” by Alberto Ríos.
“I come from a family of people with names, / Real names, not-afraid names, with colors / Like the fireworks… / Names that take a moment to say, / Names you have to practice.”
The name “Bích” means jade. The stone is meant to protect, to heal—and the greener the jade, the better. In this painting, I show the name Bích rich in color, drawing from abstract art as well as traditional calligraphy, to show the name’s energy and beauty.
Phúc is a Vietnamese name, especially popular among our Chinese-Vietnamese community. Phúc is the transliteration of a Chinese surname meaning an abbreviation for Fujian province 福建省 [Fu2 jian4 sheng3], “good fortune, happiness, luck.” In the English language, Phúc is a name that has been misinterpreted or misread as a curse word; therefore many Vietnamese American people with this name choose alternative names (such as “Phil”) to avoid negative interactions.
In this painting, I draw from street art inspirations as well as traditional calligraphy, to show the name’s strength and to celebrate its meaning. The paintings also allude to how the name can fade into the noise of how “Phúc” can be misinterpreted.
Phước is a unisex Vietnamese name, meaning “lucky” or “blessing.” In the English language, Phước is not interpreted as blessing, but as a curse; therefore many Vietnamese American people with this name choose alternative names (such as “Fran” or “Frank”) to avoid negative interactions.
In this small painting, I write the name Phước in a calligraphic style, drawing from graffiti art inspirations as well as traditional calligraphy, to evoke a positive connotation with the name and to celebrate its meaning.
Dũng is a masculine Vietnamese name, meaning "courage,” and is pronounced “yoong.” The Vietnamese alphabet has both a hard “Đ” with a bar in the middle, and a soft “D” pronounced like a “Y.” In the English language, Dũng has negative connotations because it is incorrectly pronounced with a hard “Đ”; therefore many Vietnamese American people with this name choose to add a “z” or Anglicize their name to avoid negative interactions.
In this painting, I write the name Dũng in a calligraphic style, drawing from Hokusai inspirations as well as traditional calligraphy, to evoke a positive connotation with the name and to celebrate its meaning.
“Phúc” is a beloved Vietnamese name because on the Lunar New Year, the Vietnamese people say “phúc lộc thọ”, which means happiness, windfall, and longevity. Our Vietnamese communities say or display these words on banners during the Lunar New Year to wish people well. In English, the word “Phúc” is often misinterpreted or mocked as looking like or sounding like a crude curse word. In this painting, I challenge our English-oriented reading of these words by layering the painting with different iterations of these words, so their meaning blends into the imagery and colors, imbuing them with the energy and positivity that they are meant to convey.
In Vietnamese, nước has two meanings: country and water. As a Vietnam-born refugee, nước has always been a life-giving source for me. It is a place where I draw my memories and inspiration; it is a source of nostalgia and pain; it is ever evolving. After the War in Vietnam, nước was both a place we fled and a vehicle for escape; nước represented new opportunities. No wonder I am drawn to creating images that are both full of movement and alludes to my homeland.
In Vietnamese, sông means river and sống means to live or survive. Growing up, I always wondered why these words were so similar. Now, especially as global climate change has affected our lives and shifted the way that water moves, flooding some places and drying up other places, we are all experiencing how rivers play a crucial part in our lives.
The Mekong River (Sông Mê Kông) is the world's twelfth longest river and runs from the Tibetan Plateau through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Sông Mê Kông is a major trade route between western China and Southeast Asia. This year, the lower Mekong River is entering its fourth year of drought with poor rainfall, climate change, and hydropower dams producing the worst conditions along Southeast Asia's largest waterway in more than 60 years, threatening the livelihoods of up to 70 million people.
As part of my ongoing series about nước (water/homeland), this painting is about the life-giving and life-altering impact of sông on our humanity’s navigation of nước to sống.
After the War in Vietnam, nước was both a place we fled and a vehicle for escape; nước represented immense loss and hope for new life. Dreams and nightmares came from our individual and collective experiences with nước. For many Vietnamese, an entire generation of our families and friends died or thrived depending on how we each fared as “boat people” in the South China Sea after 1975. My memories with nước did not involve pirates or storms on the dangerous ocean, but the feeling of churn and unease permeates those anxiety-tinged snapshots of our time in refugee camps.
Pain and grief are not topics that we, as a society, know how to talk about in the U.S., but coming to terms with pain and grieving are important to our health and humanity. I have found that sharing how we are feeling can help us feel less alone, and offer others the opportunity to support us. In my most difficult moments, it is the kindness of others who help me through my despair. These moments of vulnerability create human connection. And out of pain comes compassion and an appreciation for joy.
The pain of the past must be recognized and remembered to cultivate a more joyous, inclusive future.
“i am accused of tending to the past as if i made it, as if i sculpted it with my own hands. i did not. this past was waiting for me when i came, a monstrous unnamed baby, and i with my mother’s itch took it to breast and named it History. she is more human now, learning language everyday, remembering faces, names and dates. when she is strong enough to travel on her own, beware, she will.” - Lucille Clifton
This painting reflects the turbulence I feel in the world, the chaos that we are all collectively going through. We are experiencing the wild waves of the 2020s in different ways, but are all impacted by the same waves. The war in Ukraine, the tumultuous economic climate, the hectic job market and rollercoaster that is the pandemic, the onslaught of violence and terrorism in the U.S. and abroad, all of which create collective trauma. How are you riding out the waves? With what community do you choose to ground yourself during this moment in time? These are the questions on my mind as I experience the roaring twenties.
Carrying grief requires us to learn to live with pain, in order to find reasons to appreciate what we have in life. In that spirit, I share this tiny painting and a poem:
“It’s not the weight you carry but how you carry it – books, bricks, grief – it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it when you cannot, and would not, put it down.” So I went practicing. Have you noticed? Have you heard the laughter that comes, now and again, out of my startled mouth?” — Mary Oliver
Losing my dad unexpectedly remains a source of sadness in my life. My dad was my biggest critic and and most proud supporter. He had an incredible life story: orphaned by the French-Indochina war, drafted in his late teens to fight the war in Vietnam, and challenged to build a new life with our family as refugees in the U.S. Despite the adversities he experienced, my dad taught me that none of us survive without the support of others, and always managed to tease a smile out of strangers. He delighted in making children giggle and in savoring unexpected pleasures: a blooming rose, a penny on the sidewalk, a fresh cookie. He taught me the value of humility and curiosity. In sharing his war stories with me and with those he touched, my dad encouraged vulnerability and human connection, and was also able to process his trauma. I miss him so much and also relish the life he lived. He is the reason I continue to treasure and encourage sharing personal histories.
“Those who have never despaired have neither lived nor loved. Hope is inseparable from despair. Those of us who truly hope make despair a constant companion whom we outwrestle every day owing to our commitment to justice, love, and hope.” - Cornel West
This series is based on Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Quyên spent a summer in NYC exploring the intersections between nature and humankind. These watercolors represent the palimpsests of those experiences.
After the Fall of Saigon on April 30th, 1975, every South Vietnamese man, from former officers in the armed forces, to religious leaders, to employees of the Americans or the old government, were told to report to a re-education camp to "learn about the ways of the new government." Many South Vietnamese men chose to flee on boats, but others had established lives and loved ones in Vietnam, so they willingly entered these camps in hopes of quickly reconciling with the new government and continuing their lives peacefully. According to my father, the government said re-education would only last for ten days, and at most two weeks. However, once there, the men were detained for many years in grueling labor camps.
Excerpts from My Father’s Oral History
The best way to describe these camps is through the words of someone who lived through it. In Spring 2003, I interviewed my father and learned about his experiences in totality for the first time.
I was astounded at all the suffering he endured and the persecution he overcame to survive the grueling conditions of the camps. First-as a newlywed, he was forcibly separated from my mother and unable to keep stable communication with her during his imprisonment. They were only allowed to write once every 3-5 months, and have visits once a year. During his time, he was only given one bowl of rice per day, just enough to survive and work, but not enough to escape. He did hard physical labor like carrying bamboo and water and clearing forested areas to construct buildings from sunrise to sunset under the supervision of cocky young communist officers. At night, he slept in cramped, disease-ridden living quarters, where he lay awake, fearing death from fatigue, lack of medical attention and malnutrition. "Since we lacked food and medicine many people died. Sometimes I’d lie awake at night, not knowing when my turn would come, because a friend had died just two days ago, and a week after I would bury another friend in the fields. I’d bring another friend to the hospital, only to have him die. So I didn’t know when my turn would come..."
Learning about my father's experiences has influenced the way I view the world. After hearing his stories, I wanted to give voice to all the Re-Education Camp survivors whose voices have not been heard. Many of these Vietnamese men have emigrated to the US, and like my father, many are working in menial, labor-intensive jobs so their kids could have the opportunities they never had. As a machinist who has little knowledge of English, my father has few people with whom he could share these stories, and I know he appreciated the opportunity to share them with me and have me spread them to a wider audience.
The process of writing the oral history helped me better understand my father's experiences, but I needed to create something else to share these stories with other people. I was struck by certain images my father evoked in retelling his stories, like "canned sardines" to describe sleeping conditions. I was also inspired by anecdotes about hunger, work, and camaraderie in the jungles, and created five pen and ink drawings, illustrating the experiences as I imagined them.
Conclusions
My intentions for creating these paintings is not to horrify anyone, or remind ourselves of atrocities we can commit upon each other. Rather, these paintings are meant to honor my father's experiences and those of the men who suffered alongside him. Furthermore, these paintings are a testament to these men's strength and courage in the face of devastating conditions.
The Vietnamese have deep beliefs in ancestral worship, Buddhist notions of karma, and superstitions. In the scroll-like paintings, my intention is to evoke the spirits of the Vietnamese people who have survived and transcended these re-education camps. Moreover, I want the work to pulsate with life and with the daily struggles of re-education camp detainees.
Despite the many instances of inhumanity portrayed in these works, there was also a lot of humanity shared among the prisoners as they supported each other in their quest for survival. The men who suffered through the worst of the corporal punishments still had a lot of life left in them to persevere, leave the camps, and create lives anew both in Vietnam and in the United States. Unfortunately, many of these re-education camp survivors have been unable to speak about their experiences, and their stories are left unheard. These paintings are meant to evoke the stories we all carry within, so that we can celebrate our lives and those that came before us.
