The creation myth of Vietnamese people tells the tale of Lạc Long Quân, the Dragon King, falling in love and getting married to Âu Cơ, the Mountain Fairy. Âu Cơ gave birth to a sac containing 100 eggs from which 100 children were born. Husband and wife parted ways because their lineages, of dragons and of fairies, are incompatible. Lạc Long Quân took 50 children to the seaward South while Âu Cơ took the remaining 50 children with her to the mountainous North. The eldest son followed his mother to Phong Châu (Phú Thọ), later succeeded his father and ruled as Hùng King the First. 

Vietnamese as a people have survived generations of trauma, of bloodshed. We are descendants of dragons and fairies. We are born from earth and water. Earth may travel in the winds to land on new ground. Water may flow with its current to the waves of a new sea. Whether we’re still in Vietnam or oceans away, our flesh and blood are the soil and water from which our lineages take roots. 

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) isn’t something that I specifically celebrate. How can we possibly compress millennia of history and diasporas in a month? How can we possibly begin to grasp to generation trauma that not only our parents but also our ancestors of generations past endured? How can we possibly unpack our own trials and tribulations in one month? We too, as currently existing, are the heritage of which we’re asking ourselves to celebrate. 

APAHM can be kindling to the fire of heritage, of self that burns red inside for a lifetime to come. As we spend each day thinking, learning, and preserving our families’ treasured past, we too can see the lights into our futures. Futures in which we are comfortable living our truth and thriving.