Vietnamese American

I am the child of two Vietnamese refugees who escaped Vietnam after their beloved country fell to communism. I am a child of immigrant parents, who came to the United States with hopes of creating a new life for themselves, and for their family.

I am American, I was born and raised in Colorado. I value independence, honesty, and directness. I have navigated between both cultures, and yet, never truly fit into either one.

I am Vietnamese American. I have adopted values from both cultures. This has shaped who I am. This includes some wonderful traits and characteristics I love about me, but this also includes unhealthy behaviors, thoughts, and things I’ve internalized. I exist in the middle lane between these two different cultures.

My therapist once asked me, “Who are you? Who is Lana?”

I blinked at her and paused. She said to me, “we get to define who we are at the core. We can also solidify who we are”.

I cannot truly describe my journey to you without prefacing two concepts: Repression and Intergenerational Trauma.

Per the APA Dictionary of Psychology, repression is defined as “the basic defense mechanism that excludes painful experiences and unacceptable impulses from consciousness”.

Can you reach a state of full self-awareness without addressing the trauma, emotions, and memories you’ve repressed? Can you say you really know who you are if you have yet to open this door and face all of it head on? Too many people spend their life on autopilot, try to be someone they aren’t, or hide from their authentic self. I can tell you that I am still learning and defining who I am.

Per the APA Dictionary of Psychology, Intergenerational Trauma is defined as “a phenomenon in which the descendants of a person who has experienced a terrifying event show adverse emotional and behavioral reactions to the event that are similar to those of the person himself or herself. These reactions vary by generation but often include shame, increased anxiety and guilt, a heightened sense of vulnerability and helplessness, low self-esteem, depression, suicidality, substance abuse, dissociation, hypervigiliance, intrusive thoughts, difficulty with relationships and attachment to others, difficulty in regulating aggression, and extreme reactivity to stress. The exact mechanisms of the phenomenon remain unknown but are believed to involve effects on relationship skills, personal behavior, and attitudes and beliefs that affect subsequent generations”.

Per my therapist, culture is a man-made construct. If traditions are passed on for more than three generations, the traditions become culture. However, along with traditions and/or culture passed on from generation to generation, trauma can also be passed on.

My parents were born during the Vietnam war, lived through the war, and survived. They immigrated to the United States, in search of a new beginning and freedoms they did not have. They achieved success and religious freedoms in a new country where they rebuilt their home. Unfortunately, they have not been able to move past survival mode, understandably so from what they have experienced. However, this in turn greatly affected my upbringing and I still feel the impact of the trauma I inherited.

There were noticeable patterns in my behavior. It took many years for me to understand that many of my reactions and patterns were linked to a person or situation in my past, regardless if the memory was repressed.

For example, I used to have a hard time with decluttering or letting things go. My parents grew up very poor in Vietnam, and as a result, they kept a lot of things “just in case”. Especially since they grew up during a time of war, they really focus and emphasize being prepared. This results in a hoarding mentality.

To make the connection, I spent a lot of time reflecting to identify these instances. I had to become comfortable with my thoughts and learned to analyze them to understand where the behavior may have originated from. Self-awareness is the first step to understanding who you are.