So basically renown Vietnamese American Author, Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer, The Refugees) gets told by "Frank" (who has a vietnamese wife and lived in Vietnam for 12 years) on facebook to go back to home to his home country and learn more about his people.
(You can find the post on his FB: https://www.facebook.com/vnguyen1)
Viet Nguyen then goes off on a massive great rant on "Frank":
Also as a bonus, Viet Ngyuen as mentioned, wrote a great article on Anti Asian Racism in the times that was also in response to "Frank":
"
Asian Americans Are Still Caught in the Trap of the 'Model Minority' Stereotype. And It Creates Inequality for All"
time.com
Update! Viet Nguyen has a little more to say:
(You can find the post on his FB: https://www.facebook.com/vnguyen1)
Viet Nguyen then goes off on a massive great rant on "Frank":
I lost control and went to town on Frank on my Facebook author page, so I'll just share here too since you saw what he had to say. The tl;dr version is: fuck Frank.
Alright, let's talk about Frank. Most of you understand where Frank is wrong, but some of you are like, Hey, Frank has a point. Just because he's a white foreigner doesn't mean he can't know Vietnamese culture more than a Vietnamese American like Viet. We're all anti-racist people here, right? Americans can be just as Vietnamese as Vietnamese, if not more so!
So I'll be frank. Frank has an advantage over me. He spent twelve years in Vietnam. I've only been there for four years as a child, and then about one year as an adult returning to study the language and do research, and by "studying the language," I mean going to nightclubs, but that's a learning experience, right?
Nevertheless, through my research, I was able to write "Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War" and "The Sympathizer." I know some Vietnamese people have read these books, including the Vietnamese people in the government, who won't allow them to be published in Vietnam. If I knew nothing about Vietnam, then the government would probably let my books be published in Vietnam, because they would be harmless. But my assumption is that my books must show some kind of fundamental truth about the country that is frightening to the authorities, or else why would they care?
Frank's next claim is that he has a Vietnamese wife. Admittedly, "I have an Asian wife" is our version of "I have a Black friend," but I'll let that pass. The strange thing is—I have a Vietnamese wife, too! And we've been married for 23 years! But she's a Vietnamese American like me, and we don't count. BUT!!! I have Vietnamese parents!!!! And I lived with them for 17 years!!!! And they are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY Vietnamese. Shouldn't that count for something?
Then Frank says I don't know the Vietnamese people. I'm not sure how we can test this claim. I will grant to Frank that when I go to northern Vietnam, the Vietnamese people think I'm a Korean and are amazed at how good my Vietnamese is (for a Korean). But after we have some beers together, they think I'm Vietnamese, and that's good enough for me.
The really problematic part is when Frank says I don't know the American people either. This tells me everything I need to know about Frank. Because I've lived in the USA for 45 years. I have a PhD in ENGLISH and I'm a Chaired Professor (you can call me Thầy). I'm pretty sure my English ability is better than most Americans. I won the fucking Pulitzer Prize for Literature (!) which very few Americans have done. But somehow my 45 years in America is not equal to Frank's 12 years in Vietnam, but I guess his Vietnamese wife makes up for that. My parents always did say that Vietnamese women were the best.
Then Frank says I should spend a few years back in Vietnam and get to know my heritage, which I will translate for you: GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM.
Basically, Frank is a RACIST, which he has disguised to himself, his wife, and to whoever thinks he is reasonable by using the excuse of having married a Vietnamese woman and spending time in Vietnam. I've met plenty of Franks in person in Vietnam, and let me tell you something: all of them have a Vietnamese wife, girlfriend, or prostitute on their arms.
Let me end on a more academic note. Frank is not just a RACIST, he is what Edward Said called an ORIENTALIST. An Orientalist may indeed have spent decades in an "Oriental" country and found himself an "Oriental" lover and become fluent in an "Oriental" language. An Orientalist loves his "Oriental" country, and when he encounters an "Oriental" American, he will sniff and say, "You've lost your roots" (Frank calls it my "heritage"). But as Said points out, the Orientalist, while knowing a great number of details about the Oriental country in question, uses that knowledge to perpetuate his own power and superiority, and to create stereotypes about the "Oriental" people which serve to accentuate his own superiority. Stereotypes like how knowing an "Oriental" woman means knowing an "Oriental" country.
Frank's comment, by the way, occurred because he read my review of Da 5 Bloods, a movie for which I will bet a lot of money that I much more eminently qualified to talk about than Frank.
Basically, fuck Frank. He's doing what Franks always do. The sad part is seeing Vietnamese people making excuses for him and questioning whether Vietnamese Americans are actually Vietnamese. That's the subject of a whole other essay, but I'll just note the irony of how Vietnamese people in Vietnam like to treat me as a foreigner, a Viet Kieu, and condescend to me--until they need my money. Then all of a sudden I'm really Vietnamese, one of them, a long-lost countryman and relative who should understand their situation, feel for their plight, and give them whatever I have. Vietnamese people (in Vietnam but also in the United States) have some screwed up notions of authenticity that they need to work out for themselves.
If you have ever witnessed Vietnamese people fawning over a white person who can say a single word of Vietnamese, but will question the Vietnameseness of any Vietnamese American who makes a single mistake when speaking the language, you know what I'm talking about.
As for me, I don't care what Vietnamese or Americans think I am. I know exactly what and who I am. Born in Vietnam, made in America. Like so many others. Don't blame us for the history that made us. Don't put us in one box or one category. We have many labels and we can use them as needed—Vietnamese, American, Vietnamese American, immigrant, refugee, expatriate, returnee. And for me, most importantly, son, husband, father, reader, and writer.
I'm not done. I have 5500 more words for you coming later today. Writing is fighting, as Ishmael Reed and Frank Chin said, and I'm looking forward to more fights.
Also as a bonus, Viet Ngyuen as mentioned, wrote a great article on Anti Asian Racism in the times that was also in response to "Frank":
"
Asian Americans Are Still Caught in the Trap of the 'Model Minority' Stereotype. And It Creates Inequality for All"
Asian Americans Are Still Caught in the Trap of the ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype. And It Creates Inequality for All
Asian Americans have embraced a country that passed a law to keep them out
Update! Viet Nguyen has a little more to say:
tldr: fuck "Frank", don't be a "Frank"Why did I go off on poor Frank? Was he worth my time? Should I have let his comment go as yet another trollish, ignorant observation?
There are in fact a few ignorant trolls in the comments (on my author page--I know people here aren't trolls), and I encourage you to ignore them.
However, Frank is a TYPE, and it felt important to describe this type and how he operates. #fuckFrank is not about an individual. It is about Frank as a racist, patronizing, patriarchal, nationalist state of mind that we Asian Americans have confronted far too often. And not just Asian Americans. Women, too, in general. And I have seen comments from people of other diasporas chiming in that they, too, have their Franks. Then just imagine if you're a diasporic or minority woman of color, how bad it gets.
So I was angry. Some people see me angry and they're like, Don't be angry. You're just being overcome by your emotions. Be rational. Argue politely.
Fuck no.
Have you read The Sympathizer? Because it is a fucking angry novel. It was rejected by 13 (white, American) editors (the one who bought it was mixed-race and British), and I'm sure part of the reason was that they had no idea what to do with an angry Vietnamese or Asian American person. We, who have experienced low-level and high-intensity racism, sexism, and xenophobia are expected to be the model minority, work hard, laugh off the stupid jokes, agree with the white man (and the white woman), stay in our place, stay in our lane, deal daily with the headache of hitting our heads on the glass ceiling and the bamboo ceiling. Those of us who are not the model minority are just expected to shut up and take it. And some of us take out our feelings on each other instead of on those in power.
Fuck no.
Anger is not a bad emotion in and of itself. Anger that leads to hate and unproductive violence and to blaming each other and other minorities or the weak is bad anger. But anger that lets us express our awareness of injustice and which helps us find our voice and speak up and mobilize with others to stand up in public and demand change--that is a righteous anger. That is a necessary anger.
If all I did was dunk on Franks on the Internet, it would be kind of lame. But dunking on Franks is just practice. You're not going to be ready to fight when it really matters if you don't fight the stupidity and malignance on a daily level. I've been doing this since I was in college. This allowed me to be ready to do things like write essays for the New York Times and Time, where I get to confront Frank attitudes when they are expressed by the really powerful.
Here's one section from my Time essay that speaks to this necessary anger:
"Through my Asian-American studies courses and my fellow student activists of the Asian American Political Alliance, I was no longer a faceless part of an "Asian invasion." I was an Asian American. I had a face, a voice, a name, a movement, a history, a consciousness, a rage. That rage is a major feeling, compelling me to refuse a submissive politics of apology, which an uncritical acceptance of the American Dream demands."
So feel your anger. Rage when necessary. Don't apologize. Don't be submissive. Don't be afraid that what you experience is yours alone. It's not. There are others out there who are feeling exactly what you're feeling, but you'll never know if you don't speak out, stand up, and be known.
As for the Asians in Asia, the Vietnamese in Vietnam, I don't expect them to necessarily understand the experiences of Vietnamese or Asian Americans or other minorities. Not that they can't, but for many of them, they are the majority in their countries. Like white people in the USA, they need to recognize their own privilege and power. Otherwise they won't understand what being a "minority" feels like, because they're very possibly the ones oppressing minorities in their own country.
Last edited:
