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Women Only
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Straight Female / 32
Assimilation
Just for a basis if understanding, I'm a third generation Vietnamese girl raised in Houston. My family owns an alterations business.
After college I returned home and was lucky to get a job two weeks after graduation. My family had this vision for us girls, grow up, go to college, get married, have a houseful of children. Our generation wanted a career, travel, have some fun before being tied to a husband and children.
I was not that social, I did have my own place, but didn't date. I didn't need it or want it. I got older, and older, I turned 30. No husband, no boyfriend, no prospects.
A man in his thirties, almost forty, asked me to get married. An Anglo. White. Caucasian. I said no. My family would die if they thought I was talking to a non Vietnamese about marriage. When he went behind my back and went to talk to my parents, they were hurt, insulted, that a white man would think about marrying me, getting me pregnant.
They interpreted my not being there as my shame. When I told them I wasn't part of it, they didn't believe me. But I was thirty, and a proposal from a man with a good job and a profession wasn't something to ignore. They accepted. Not getting married was disobeying my father, dishonor, I was dressed up and married in a Baptist Church.
To say my wedding night was my first night, to say I had to disrobe in front of a man I only knew from work. To have a new name, Bergeron. To have a husband named Hebert, pronounced Ayeber, from Louisiana, a Cajun, with a Vietnamese wife. Culture shock, what Vietnamese girl ever heard of boudin, used Tabasco sauce?
What Vietnamese girl has a husband eleven inches taller? I married a man I never dated, never kissed, never cooked for. He liked the traditional Vietnamese wife. There was trouble in paradise. But my father gave me the talk, if I failed he was dishonored, lost face. I became a traditional Vietnamese wife.
So far so good. My husband took me to Viet Nam. To look for my extended family. I looked Vietnamese, I wasn't Vietnamese, I was American.
After college I returned home and was lucky to get a job two weeks after graduation. My family had this vision for us girls, grow up, go to college, get married, have a houseful of children. Our generation wanted a career, travel, have some fun before being tied to a husband and children.
I was not that social, I did have my own place, but didn't date. I didn't need it or want it. I got older, and older, I turned 30. No husband, no boyfriend, no prospects.
A man in his thirties, almost forty, asked me to get married. An Anglo. White. Caucasian. I said no. My family would die if they thought I was talking to a non Vietnamese about marriage. When he went behind my back and went to talk to my parents, they were hurt, insulted, that a white man would think about marrying me, getting me pregnant.
They interpreted my not being there as my shame. When I told them I wasn't part of it, they didn't believe me. But I was thirty, and a proposal from a man with a good job and a profession wasn't something to ignore. They accepted. Not getting married was disobeying my father, dishonor, I was dressed up and married in a Baptist Church.
To say my wedding night was my first night, to say I had to disrobe in front of a man I only knew from work. To have a new name, Bergeron. To have a husband named Hebert, pronounced Ayeber, from Louisiana, a Cajun, with a Vietnamese wife. Culture shock, what Vietnamese girl ever heard of boudin, used Tabasco sauce?
What Vietnamese girl has a husband eleven inches taller? I married a man I never dated, never kissed, never cooked for. He liked the traditional Vietnamese wife. There was trouble in paradise. But my father gave me the talk, if I failed he was dishonored, lost face. I became a traditional Vietnamese wife.
So far so good. My husband took me to Viet Nam. To look for my extended family. I looked Vietnamese, I wasn't Vietnamese, I was American.
- That's Juicy! 13
- Remove It! 8
