Across the Mekong River (11 page)

“When would we go?” Yer asked,
frowning.

“As soon as possible.
It is best for our children, Yer. They will have a better life.”

The papers came the following week, and I took th
em directly to the MOI office. The clerk scheduled our interview with the American team for the first week of November. He reminded me twice that every member of the family who was planning to immigrate must attend the interview.

My resolve wavered over the next few weeks as our home became a plac
e of silence and unhappy faces. The conversations at meals lapsed into the perfunctory politeness of strangers. Chor could not see the reason in my arguments. His focus remained across the river. One morning we woke to find he had slipped away on another mission, while Lia wept and worried that her baby would not have a father by the time it was born.

I spoke to Uncle once more, but
his answer remained the same. He asked me not to bring it up again. Gia took me aside one afternoon. He wanted desperately to go to America. Perhaps he could convince his father next year.

Yer did not challenge my decision, but her a
nxiety spilled into our lives. One day she snapped at Nou for letting the rice cook too long and the next for not cooking it enough. Her milk turned sour, causing Houa to become colicky and cry. Some days she was withdrawn while others she hounded me with endless questions:
How will I learn English? What will I do in America? Will I be able to work in the fields again? How will Shone and Soua find us when we get there? How big is Minneapolis? Are there trees and flowers and mountains? How will we manage?
Will we be safe? Will we ever see Laos again?
No matter how grim Ban Vinai had become the unknown world seemed to scare her more. I could not identify the underlying shadow of her exaggerated fears. Something more weighed on her emotions, but it remained a mystery to me.

I thought Uncle and Chor would change
their minds. But the interview date arrived, and only Yer and I with our three girls sat before the panel. We received approval for a mid-December departure date. And so we left our family behind.

N
OU

In the small courtroom I am surrounded by my attorney, the social services representative, and friends who support me. I gather my strength amid the morass of lies and misunderstandings, the struggles and disappointments that have shaped my story. None of us ever expected it would turn out this way. But the burden of blame is not mine alone. We are all complicit. I have washed onto a distant shore, no longer within my father’s reach.

The judg
e asks for opening statements. Father fixes his eyes on him as if uncertain how to respond, waiting for permission to rise. His solitary figure at the opposite table sends a mixture of remorse and pity flooding over me. Perhaps he could not afford a lawyer and was too proud to ask for help. I know he would distrust the ability of anyone to speak his truth. To tell his story. More likely it is his unwavering faith in his decisions, his undeniable rights as my father, and the impossibility that the judge will not agree with him. His stubbornness defies reality.

My attorney Mr. Ross stands and straightens
his blue and gray striped tie. He is tall and attractive with light brown hair, graying at the temples, and large hazel eyes. I have met with him twice in his office over the past weeks. He listened carefully to my story and the intermittent comments of Mrs. Hernandez from social services, only interrupting occasionally to clarify details. When I stumbled over my words, choked with tears, he handed me tissues and waited patiently until I could continue. He expressed his sympathy and admitted the case troubled him. He imagined my parents must be suffering a great deal from the situation as well.

Mr. Ross clears his throat.
“Your honor, I am representing the Ms. Lee in her petition.” His voice is deep and, although he speaks softly in an even, measured rhythm, it resonates through the quiet chamber. His demeanor is determined but not aggressive, recounting his concern and respect for the weight of the matter before the judge. He concludes his statement by emphasizing certain words, drawing them out, letting them hang in the air for a moment as he glances at my father.

At last, Father turns his
full, unflinching gaze on me. The lines in his face and the set of his jaw express his disbelief. But it is the anguish in his eyes, a suffering from deep within rooted in another time and place, the losses and struggles none of us can erase from memory, that finally causes me to bow my head. For the hundredth time I trace events over the years, trying to find when the fissures in our relationship first formed. I remember the confusion and resentment as I tried to bridge my disparate worlds, never understanding my parents’ demands, their unbending adherence to a culture and rules that had little relevance to my life. Somewhere along this path I found my own strength. I made a choice to redefine myself and my future.

This is how Laura was born.

PAO

I remember the day we came to America, as if it were yesterday. January 29, 1982. I told myself we could make a new beginning. We had our family. America offered opportunities, a better life for our children. I was not afraid of hard work. Yer would recover and return to me whole and happy as she had once been. All these thoughts--my hopes and dreams that ebbed and flowed on an underlying current of anxiety--wound a crooked path through my mind. Perhaps it is like this for everyone who comes to America.

We trav
eled on a flight from Bangkok. Such a big plane, larger than the American B-52s that filled the skies over Laos during the war. I had been on propeller planes and helicopters, but never anything like this. People from all over the world, Thai, Chinese, and Westerners, dressed in expensive clothes, sat in rows of chairs. They glanced up as the stewardess led us down the aisle to our seats. She showed us the bathrooms and how to hook the seatbelts and lower the tables. Later she would bring us little trays of food, and we would sit wide-eyed with amazement at the movie on a screen that folded down from ceiling.

Yer’s hands felt sweaty and shaky as she ha
nded me Moa to hold on my lap. She hugged little Houa so tight that she began to cry. I admit to a flutter in my stomach as the plane swept down the runway, the force pushing me back against the chair. My skin tingled with a hundred caterpillars crawling up my arms. Yer squeezed her eyes shut, and a tear trickled down her cheek. I did not know if it was fear or the thought of what we left behind. Nou and I watched out the tiny window as the plane left the earth behind and floated up through puffy clouds into the brilliant blue sky.

We had spent over a month at the Nikhom Processing Center l
earning about our future lives. Everyone had to be healthy to go to America—no drugs or TB or other illnesses. The sick had to stay at the center’s clinic to be treated. They took our blood and urine and X-rayed our lungs. The ones who had smoked opium waited and worried, afraid they would be sent back to the refugee camps.

An Australian woman taught us basic words of English:
hello, goodbye, my name is, how are you, where is the bathroom
. Yer learned nothing. She said it was too difficult. Once more her attention wandered to another place.

Mr. Marshall, another instructor, showed us a map of
the U.S. One member from each family, nervous and tentative, stuck a pin in the city where they would soon be living. Soon pins dotted the entire country. Mr. Marshall was fond of listing facts as he pointed to the map and the translator struggled to keep up.
Do you know the U.S. is so big it takes over five hours to fly from New York to San Francisco? Do you know that California has the largest population in the country?
Do you know that the U.S. has fifty states, including Alaska and Hawaii?
None of us knew these things.

One evening we watched a movie that began with the Statue of Liberty superimposed on an American flag fluttering in the
wind. A man’s voice narrated as the film highlighted cities filled with tall modern buildings and hundreds of cars and people moving about like ants, followed by scenes of vast, flat fields of swaying wheat stalks that came up to a man’s chest and jagged mountain peaks barren of trees. It was in English, so no one understood.

We heard warnings:
you must stay in the painted crosswalks when you cross the street and watch the red and green lights; do not to be fooled by advertising on television; watch out for people who might steal from you or take advantage because you do not speak the language. Yer said America sounded like a bad place. She had heard rumors in Ban Vinai that Americans cut out the hearts and other organs of Hmong people and ate them. I told her these were silly stories. She remained unconvinced.

Looking down from the plane window, green and brow
n fields gave way to blue ocean. Once I caught a glimpse of a ship, tiny and insignificant, like a toy floating on the vast sea. We chased the day into night, then night into dawn. We all slept in short spells until one of the children woke and demanded attention. Houa’s nose began to run. Moa needed to nurse. Nou wanted to visit the bathroom again. I woke the last time with a jolt as the plane bounced onto the runway in Los Angeles. The sky and land ran together in a rainbow of red and orange streaks while stars still twinkled overhead.

We crowded into the immigration line half asleep, clutching the children, engulfed by the hum
of idle chatter and close air. After twenty minutes we reached an older man sitting in a booth wearing a khaki uniform. He had a bald head and ears that stuck straight out. For a long time he studied our papers then called to a Thai translator to help. No Hmong person would ever be so impolite. Not a smile or nod or greeting, no acknowledgement of my answers. This was our welcome to America.

An airline employee
ushered us to the next flight. I thought I could not bear another four hours sitting in the tiny seats with our children squirming and whining as they climbed back and forth between laps. I wanted to be in Minneapolis safe with my family. The sky grew cloudy and soon only streams of white and gray mist flowed past the window, obscuring the land below. The plane began to bounce and twist, like a hornbill searching for a perch. Yer clutched my arm. I held tight to Houa and fastened Nou’s seatbelt. At last the plane’s nose dipped down through the gray veil. Now I was the one with sweaty palms. We circled over flat stretches of white fields until white trees and white houses appeared. The plane eased onto the wide gray runway.

Yer held my gaze a moment with a weary smile as we ga
thered the children once more. Dazed, we stepped off the plane and through the gate. Bright lights shone down from the ceiling and bounced off white walls and the shiny linoleum floor. I had to blink against the glare. The air was hot and stuffy and smelled of coffee and sweat. People were gathered, waving and calling to those coming off the plane, while others lounged in chairs near the gate. A deep voice came over a loud speaker with announcements I did not understand. I searched the crowd for familiar faces, straining my neck to see over the heads of men and women hurrying up and down the long hall. Everyone was so tall. A strange, small car whined to a halt beside us to pick up an elderly woman. More passengers pushed past us, dragging bags and children, disappearing down the hall. Still no sign of our family. I had no idea what to do if they did not come. For the first time I grasped the difficulty of my inability to speak the language and communicate my needs.

Then I spotted them, racing toward us, bundled in bulky jackets and mufflers, unmistakab
le in an ocean of white faces. Our family. At last, our family. Blia, Tou, and Mee reached us first, stopping short as if unsure what to say or do, momentarily shy. Shone and Kia, out of breath and holding baby John, followed, then Yer and Soua. They encircled us with hugs and tears as everyone talked at once. Yer broke down with great sobs, laughing at the same time. She clung to Kia. The babies began to wail. Relief and happiness filled my eyes with tears.

Shone pulled me from the group, turning to a short, round man with wispy, blond hair and pink, chubby cheeks who stood slightly apart. “This is Mr. Martin f
rom St. Paul’s Church. He drove us in the church van to meet you.”

I wiped tears on my sleeve and shook his hand. Mr. Martin bobbed and bowed h
is head, greeting me in Hmong. Every time he smiled, his face wrinkled up until his pale blue eyes disappeared.

It is funny remembering first impressions, the things that startled me as modern wonders, but also preca
rious and potentially harmful. Mr. Martin led us down the odd moving stairs like the ones we had seen in the Bangkok airport but had been too uncertain to try. Nou chased her cousins onto it, giggling. Yer and I stepped on gingerly, clutching the rail. It made me think of sliding down a muddy hill, unsteady and about to fall. I didn’t expect the steps to melt into a ramp at the bottom, propelling me forward. I bumped into Shone who had stopped to steady Yer as she tumbled off and let out a cry of surprise.

Suitcases spilled
out of a big metal mouth and circled on a turnstile topped by a flashing yellow lantern that buzzed in a low drone. People crowded around. The exit doors swept open without anyone touching them, sending cold air rushing through the room. At last our cardboard boxes, tied with rope, emerged.

Kia had brought jackets for us
and blankets for Houa and Moa. The frozen air, the intense bitter ache that hit us the minute we stepped outside, stunned me. It cut through my khaki pants and sandals and made my scalp prickle. A light wind swirled around us and sent a shiver down my back. My ears and hands turned numb. When I exhaled, little wisps of white mist hung in the air. Dark clouds of charred wood blurred the Minnesota sky, turning the fading light flat and hazy. A gray-white film obscured the ground and collected on cars and tree branches stripped of leaves as if sprinkled with ashes.

Nou reached down and grasped a handful of dirty slush off the ground, her eyes blinking quickly against the cold.
“It feels wet.”

Blia
laughed. “It’s snow,” she said in English.

“Snow,” Nou repeated the sound slowly and smiled.

“The ice is slippery,” Kia said, putting a hand under Yer’s elbow to help her negotiate the slick asphalt. Her puffy jacket was made of a material like the American parachutes that had dropped soldiers and food supplies over Laos. “We have many things to tell you. Where to begin. But now you must get home and sleep.” I marveled at the sound of the word home. Our home. Here in Minneapolis.

As we drove into the city, I thought I had never seen a place so devoid of color, so flat and bleak and stark, not even in parts of Laos where napalm had incinerated all
traces of life from the land. Dusk slipped into darkness, and large lamps on long poles suddenly shed circles of yellow light onto the frozen streets. Mr. Martin pulled up in front of a three-story red brick building.

“Mr. M
artin invites you to come to St. Paul’s soon,” Soua translated. “You are always welcome.”

I nodded and said my
first English words in America, “Thank you.”

A tall woman with waves of brown hair tied back with a purple scarf got out
of a car. A dark wool coat hung off her wide body like a tent. Her skin was the color of the rich beans from the French coffee plantations in Laos. She shifted a large black purse over her shoulder and shook hands with Shone. He introduced me to Mrs. Robinson from social services. She offered a wide smile of shimmering white as she welcomed us to Minneapolis.

In the building lobby a blast of hot, dry air hit my face
like the heat of a strong fire. We climbed to the second floor and walked down a long hall with doors on each side. It smelled of old food with a faint hint of urine. Scraps of paper, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and a stray ball littered the linoleum floor. Drawings had been scrawled across the walls. Two young boys rode tricycles down the hall and stopped to examine us, staring up with big, dark eyes.

Mrs. Robinson shooed the boys
away, her voice turning harsh. At the last door, she demonstrated which keys unlocked the two deadbolts and another lock in the doorknob. Inside, she showed me how to lock them again and hook the chain. I wondered what kind of evil we needed to keep out. A strong chemical smell filled the musty, stale air. As Shone translated, she explained the beige walls had been painted a few days earlier. The floor was covered with shaggy carpet the color of rice stalks that are ripening and beginning to turn from green to gold. A small room opened onto a kitchen and held two chairs, covered in faded cloth with a print of green ferns, arranged around a low table. She explained that the people at St. Paul’s Church had donated the furniture.

In the corner to the right of the door and opposite the sofa, a small black and white television with silver ant
ennas rested on a metal frame. Blia immediately turned a dial, and Nou joined her cousins in front of the screen, her mouth gaping open. Soon Moa insisted on being put down and snuggled up in Nou’s lap.

Mrs. Robinson pu
lled an envelope from her bag. “This is money for things you’ll need right away and food stamps.” She flashed another toothy smile and handed me a pamphlet written in Hmong that detailed available county services and a card with her phone number. “On Monday, Mr. Lee, I’ll be here at four o’clock in the afternoon to take you to your job.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m sure you want to sleep now, but if you need anything call me. There is a pay phone on the corner at the end of the block.” She spoke rapidly to Shone and left.