A Poem I wrote for class.

Here’s a poem I wrote about myself and recited in front of the class. Please note: the class is a MULTICULTURAL one, so I had to incorporate elements of race/culture in it (even though I didn’t want to). It’s mostly true though.:

There’s two sides to every story
Two sides to every life
From all my pain and glory
To all my triumphs and my strifes

Look at me and you see an Asian
My yellow skin and chinky eyes
All signs point to me being foreign
And yet… I’ve severed all my ties

Vietnam was my birthplace
Yet America is my home
I don’t like the idea of race
It’s not even in our genome

In California it’s always really sunny
In Vietnam, I really wouldn’t know
I think it’s actually kind of funny
To Vietnam I’ll most likely never go

I remain mostly an American
I hang out, I work, and I blog
At the beach I play in the sand
I eat hamburgers and hot dogs.

I was raised by the TV
because my parents worked all day
And so Pop culture was instilled in me
I hope I turned out okay

My house contains two cultures
From the White to the yellow
From Buddhist statues to Glee Posters
From smells of incense to that of Jello

Pho was a staple in my diet
And I ate rice with almost every meal
In the classroom I was very quiet
But with my friends I was always real

I’m not fluent in my Native tongue
And yet my 5 older siblings are
Compared to them I’m young
They have lived and gone far

Family time was rare when we were growing
We celebrated deaths and Chinese New Year
My parents kept on sewing sewing sewing
Their dedication and hard work deserves a cheer

A message my dad likes to relay
To all people, red and blue
Don’t listen to what the Communists say
but watch carefully what they do

In the history of their past
My dad fought the Commies in the war
And yet the memories still last
A past I shouldn’t ignore

In 3rd grade Mexicans bullied me
They hit hard and called me Chino
And though now I’m full of Glee
I still remember the pain and sorrow

In the end I have become John Tran
Because of everything that came before
My life experiences from kid to man
Has brought me to these doors

So if you look at me again
And I ask you what you see
Please don’t say, an Asian
I am more than that; I’m me.