“Dear Grandpa,” video, 8:00, 2022.
Dear Grandpa,
I know your name, Thảo Minh Trần.
I know your face. Your grumpy, stern face even when you’re happy.
I know you loved your documenting, the way you carried a camera everywhere you went to document your life in the United States.
I know the way these tapes were meant as a way to show family in Vietnam how your life was, way across the world.
The traces of these tapes are still present, even when you’ve passed many years ago.
I know you enjoy venturing to new places,
I’ve heard stories about how you would just up and go.
Pick up a map and head off fearlessly onto the highway.
Yet much of your history, much of your story beyond that
has been unspoken, lost in translation.
Your history, before the United States, are unclear to me.
I know you fought in the war,
and thats maybe how you landed in the United States afterwards.
Details of your life beyond that are lost.
They feel buried in secrecy,
perhaps the spoken,
untold stories,
now lost.
Lost through the violence,
lost in translation,
lost in retelling,
and lost in migration.
Memories of you feel scared,
they feel distant and foggy.
Fading as each year goes by.
I revisit the endless hot summers and the memories of us.
These memories are slowly fading,
what’s left are these visible tapes.
The tapes that document our family reuniting our family in the United States.
You would document and video tape all of these precious moments of us
and beautiful sceneries around us.
You would drive us everywhere.
You would drive us everywhere,
to experience the vastness and explore the States.
We would each take turns narrating what was happening.
Thoughts of you driving your beloved vintage, blue cadillac,
with doors so heavy and giant I could hardly open them by myself.
We went everywhere.
To the park,
where we would play tennis and have some fun in the summer.
To the lake,
where we would fish and enjoy our time.
I remember it being so hot but being surrounded by water and the breeze,
and so it helped us cool off that summer.
Despite the weather,
you and I would wear our coordinated thrifted outfits that consisted of
denim jeans, sweater vests, and brimmed hats.
To the zoo,
where I would ride my bike and we would look at all the animals that were there.
And finally at home,
where we would sing, laugh, and joke for hours on hours.
Dear Grandpa,
These memories of you are scarce and fading as each year goes by.
I hold them close,
these memories are so joyous yet so painful to look at.
I regret not having more memories of you.
I wonder if the hurt of losing you made me block out so many memories.
And I wondering if the stress and complications of adapting to a new country,
a new language,
a new home,
was so overwhelming that it eventually erased everything about you.
I think about all the things you have done in preparation for us to come over to the United States.
Possibly all of the things you had to sacrifice,
all of the things you had to do for us to get here.
These precious memories and moments,
before I knew you were gone,
too young to understand,
too young to comprehend,
and now i’m left with remnants of you.
So many questions,
but no answers.
So many stores left untold.
So many memories forgotten,
lost.
This is truly my dedication to you,
as you were the key to us being here today.
You are the key unlocking these memories.
You are the key that lead us here.
