Tag Archives: Homesick

Nothing is Wrong with Loving Your Culture

it hurts me to write this…

i’ve always been an open minded person. i have always wanted to know MORE. i have this guilty pleasure of knowledge. and not only that, but i have this guilty pleasure of broadening my mind to different cultures.

i am Hmong, born in America. i am a Hmong American girl.

i grew up with TWO cultures. there are times when something from BOTH cultures don’t make sense to me. it is hard, to be made fun of for not understanding something from someone who was more exposed to that culture. it is hard, to be made fun of for liking something that another person does not take time to try and understand.

it is even harder when my Hmong siblings make fun of me, a Hmong girl, for liking Hmong music.

judgement on me, on who i am.

as a Hmong girl trying to make a name for myself, is it wrong to enjoy and encourage other Hmong artists that are on the same path as me, as all of us are?

because of this judgement, this sneer that would come my way, the disagreement of what is “good” and “bad”, i have been lost.

i am a lost Hmong American girl.

i love music and it makes me who i am.

yet i can’t even enjoy it when my family, my peers are judging me about it…

in this moment where i am lost, i have given in to the guilty pleasure of Hmong music and i have not regret it at all.

i can finally connect to something. relate to other Hmong communities, like finding a little lost piece of myself.

these past few days have been filled with nothing but good. i can finally write, write and write without worries. i can finally write what is deep in my heart. what bothers me and what makes me, me.

so don’t suppress yourself just for the sake of others. find out who you are, find all your little missing puzzle pieces. take a stand for what makes you, you.

Childhood Dreams

I sat there, listening to music, that carried my childhood in them. This particular night was like any other night of my life. Nothing special was going on. Other than procrastinating on homework, life was a yawn.

I closed my eyes and thought back to when I was a child. Back in California. When days were much simpler. When the only thing I had to worry about was coming home with bruises on my knees from playing with the boys at recess.

The days when my siblings and I didn’t get yelled at for playing in the sprinklers after school,  making our uniforms soaking wet. When all I had to do was read books after books.

And of course, that smile of my best friend.

I had missed a few days from spraining my ankle (jumping off my roof). And when I returned, she had greeted me with her big smile and told me that everyone missed me. We were inseparable.

But that was back in California.

My parents moved us to the great midwest, to the state of Wisconsin. Everything I ever knew changed. People were different there, my friends new. It was difficult to accept the change. Despite my difficulties, day after day, month after month, even though I yearned for my home in California, I was moving on.

I lost connection with my childhood friends, I lost what it was to be a Cali girl.

What did I become? A girl stuck in reality. Dreaming at night but forgetting to have dreams while I walked the grounds of Earth.

a girl sits in front of her computer screen

a girl sits in front of her computer screen

unaware of who she is

unaware of how she is supposed to

tell the world how she came to be

where she came from

why she does the things she does

days turn to weeks

weeks into years

but there is only

confusion after confusion