Trung Nguyen

I kept watch at the mailbox every day for the first two weeks of May during my Senior year of high school, memorizing the exact window of time the mail carrier approached our home. He would come between three to four in the afternoon, right when I got out of school. I would rush home at a frenetic pace, keeping an anxious eye out for his white truck and blue uniform, a feverish prayer on the tip of my tongue that I wouldn’t miss him. On the days I managed to bolt home before he arrived, I would wait from my living room with a view of our front yard, straining to identify the envelopes and packages that he would unload from his satchel.

I was on the look out for any oversized envelope, larger than most letters with the dimensions of a manila folder but slender enough to fold to the curved half-circle of our mailbox. Each time that the envelope didn’t arrive, I could breathe for a second, being relieved for the day. But it wasn’t for long – I mentally prepped myself for the next day of waiting and anxiety. It had to come soon. And I had to get it before anybody in the family did.

I wasn’t out to my family. Inside the package would be our prom pictures: my then boyfriend and I, two boys, hands clasped and suits matching. My parents wouldn’t be ready to see this picture, especially because one of them was their only son.

My patience paid off. A day later, the photos arrived and I let myself melt after secretly peering into the envelope. When I looked at our photos, all of the anxiety and fear was worth it. I kept them hidden in my room most of the time, only bringing it out whenever I was feeling particularly lonely or needed something to cheer me up.

One day, I got a call from my mom while I was out. “I cleaned your room today. I just wanted to let you know.” Searching for a reason why she would call me for something so simple, I thanked her and let her know I’d be home for dinner.

The realization only came later. My heart stopped. I forgot to put away our prom pictures. I rushed back home.

***

I was my parents’ many firsts. I was their first born (and only) son, the first to be surrounded by an entire family who had spent the last twenty years resettling from Vietnam, the first to graduate high school with a 4.0, and the first to go to a UC school – these were some of the highlights of many other firsts.

While more of these firsts than I could count were met with anticipation and celebratory welcoming than with unease and tension, my parents never expected that I would also be their first gay child.

I grew up in East Side San Jose, an immense Vietnamese-American enclave and Southeast Asian refugee haven. It was nearly impossible to be alone as a child: our entire extended family lived within three blocks of one another, my schools offered Vietnamese bilingual education, and my friends didn’t question why I brought out fish sauce instead of soy sauce to the dinner table. I had a strong sense of my history and my heritage. Yet despite being affirmed in my Vietnamese identity, I couldn’t shake off a chronic sense of immense loneliness and crippling fear I had growing up. It was a fear I couldn’t escape, one that I was reminded about day to day: the fear of being who I was and loving who I wanted to love. It was paralyzing.

This same fear propelled me home the night my mom called me. Would my key work or would the locks be changed? If I had five minutes to stuff my belongings into a bag, what would I take? How much of a physical or emotional beating could I take before I made a run back out the door?

I was terrified — mostly, of losing my family. I lingered on the sidewalk of my house, carefully observing the lights in every room, as if staring at the flickering yellow glow would magically show me what everyone was doing. I talked to my then boyfriend and made back-up plan after back-up plan in case I would get kicked out. After assuring me a warm place to sleep and food to eat, I worked up the courage to enter the house.

My keys worked. I stepped inside. It was quiet. My mom was watching TV with my dad. I snuck my way past them, still fearful. As I entered my room, I couldn’t have prepared myself for what I saw.

At the front of my desk was my prom picture, neatly framed in new black wood.

***

We don’t speak of it much but small actions have liberated me over the years. They no longer bother me about when I’ll have a girlfriend. They invite my “friend” over for family celebrations. They leave out two plates for breakfast when my partner stays for the night. Though these actions don’t seem like much, they speak volumes about where we were and could have been.

Here, I have come to understand that a part of my parents’ worries and apprehensions toward my sexuality is a residual expression of the same kind of hate and discrimination they themselves faced and continue to face in the US. As refugees who were displaced into the US in the early 80’s, they want a life for me that is stable and without the kind of struggles they had to face. Knowing that life for certain LGBT communities can be difficult in the United States (in addition to being a person of color and a refugee family), their apprehension then, comes from a fear of a difficult life for their only son.

While our relationship is nowhere near what popular culture imagines a gay son – parent relationship to be, I have learned to appreciate and be patient with where we are today as we are constantly learning how to mediate our relationship. My parents will never be the kind to stick a rainbow flag bumper sticker on the back of their Camry but their support comes in these quiet moments of understated acts. Just as much as they’re working to understand how I live my life, I’m working to understand how they express their love and support.

This work was originally posted as “Picture Son” on Trung Nguyen’s blog, knowthesaurus.tumblr.com. It was also translated into Vietnamese and published as “Unconditional” in Non Song