“Our Vietnamese a time capsule, a mark of where your education ended. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.
That night I promise myself I'd never be wordless when you needed me to speak for you. So I began my career as our family's official interpreter. From then on, I would fill in our blanks, our silences, our stutters, whenever I could. I code switched. I took off our language and wore my English, like a mask, so that others would see my face, and therefore yours.

It's true that, in Vietnamese, we rarely say I love you, and when we do, it is almost always in English. Care and love, for us, are pronounced clearly through service...”