I have had this post in the back of my mind for a very long time, now I am sitting in the Tan Son Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, waiting to board my flight out of Vietnam, so I figure I now is probably the time.

Before I get on with the purpose of this post, I just would like to thank everybody who made this amazing semester in Vietnam possible; my parents, my grandparents, Loyola, and all the amazing people I have met in Vietnam, both from my program, and not from my program.

This semester has outlived any expectations that I ever could have had, I have visited different places all throughout Vietnam, as well as Thailand (twice), Cambodia, Malaysia, Japan, China, and now I am off to Bali and then to New Zealand. As of today, for the next month, I will not be spending more than two nights in any place.

Other than the amazing experiences and places I have gone to, living in Vietnam has taught me so much more about myself, and about what it means to be American. I have always been proud of my identity, though I have always had my own personal issues with my country, but living in a developing country has really made me see that although America is, in no way perfect, and although I still do have many issues with different aspects of America (especially after this past election), I am incredibly lucky to come from such a strong and influential country.

Speaking of this past election, I’ll start with the government. As belittled and sad and scared as many American’s are feeling right now (myself included), living in Vietnam has taught me how lucky all of us are to even have the option of being sad and scared about the results of November’s election. The fact that we have the opportunity to vote, and to even have an opinion about the direction of our government, makes us luckier than most. Most Vietnamese that I talked to while living here, don’t even know who their leader is. This is because, to them, it doesn’t matter. They have no say in the matter, and so they don’t care enough to even know his name. It is technically illegal in Vietnam for anybody to speak ill of the government, and so people just don’t talk about it, unless they are probed. Even though America is most likely set to regress about a decade in the next four years, we can still hold onto the fact that at least, we have the power to post as many demeaning memes about President-elect Trump on our Facebook walls as we want.

Being born and raised in Hawaii I think, has given me a little bit of a different outlook on identity than most Americans. I was raised in a place where the majority of the population is what we call “hapa” or mixed race. Being fully caucasian, I was the minority, and since I was constantly surrounded by people who were half this and half that, it wasn’t until I moved to the mainland that I realized that race was such a big issue. Before I moved to the mainland, identity had more to do with the respect you had for where you grew up than which race your ancestors belonged to. That isn’t to say that people don’t feel proud of their heritage in Hawaii, but more so, differences are celebrated rather than separated. Also, when you are born in Hawaii, unless you have Hawaiian blood, you are not technically considered Hawaiian, you were just born there, you are local. Because of this, from a young age, I was able to understand the respect that is necessary for the culture that surrounds you, whether or not it is your own. When I moved to Chicago, for the first time, I encountered people banding together because of their race, and for the first time I encountered true exclusion due to race. In Hawaii, there is animosity still between Hawaiians and caucasians, but for the most part, there has grown a mutual respect, and as a child, when I encountered animosity, it bothered me a lot less than one would think, mostly because I had respect for the reasons behind the animosity.

The United States is segregated, though still very diverse. Being a majority on the mainland, and a minority in Hawaii, I have been able to see both sides of the story, and though I in no way am able to know exactly every side feels, I do know that I have empathy for the fact that each side feels that way.

Coming to Vietnam has expanded my views on identity even more. Through personal experiences, and hearing experiences from other people in my program, it was easy to see that because Vietnam (like the rest of Asia) is not as diverse yet as America, people see identity differently. There were a couple of students in my program who are half Chinese, and it bothered them immensely when a Vietnamese person would stop and ask them where they were from. They would say “America” and the Vietnamese person would ask, “no, where are you really from?” There is really no wrong in this situation on either end, my friends identify themselves as Chinese and American and whatever other race they are, but to a Vietnamese person, you are either Vietnamese, or not Vietnamese, and if you are not Vietnamese, you are specifically something else. I myself growing up, since I am from Hawaii, so I am American, but I am also mixed European, I never had any personal issues with my identity, I just accepted that for what it was, as my personal identity, and realized that I didn’t completely fit into a box. In Vietnam, it is not considered rude to stare, and so when you look different, you get stared at a lot, and that can make you question a lot about yourself. I really don’t know how celebrities do it.

I think the biggest culture shock for me, upon my return to America, will be the whitewashing that is so apparent there. After spending four months in Vietnam, even I am thrown off when I see other white people walking around, I can’t imagine what it is like for a person born and raised in Vietnam, especially in rural areas.

Being in Southeast Asia for four months has confirmed for me, the fact that everywhere you go, no matter what your racial identity is, people are all just people. Their languages, cultural practices, and beliefs may be different, but all in all, they have the same needs and wants as any other human from across the globe.

Being an American living in Vietnam was its own unique experience. I couldn’t help but notice the differences between cultures of Americans and Vietnamese when it came to human relationships, and learning.

Throughout the semester I spent two hours every Tuesday and Thursday teaching English to disabled Vietnamese people with Disability Research and Capacity (DRD). I wasn’t really teaching per say, more just speaking English with them for the 2 two hours each time. Most of the people that we worked with were disabled because of the effects of Agent Orange. Agent Orange is another name for the chemical dioxin, which the United States sprayed throughout Vietnam during the American/Vietnam War. The effects that the chemical had Vietnam were horrifying. Not only did the sprays wipe out a huge percentage of trees and mangroves that were imperative to the ecosystems in Vietnam, it also caused damage to the Vietnamese people, for generations to come. Americans who came into contact with the chemical during the war also were harmed, but the effect it had on Vietnam was exponential. At the time that the dioxin was sprayed, no studies had been done with it, to show the effect it would have on the human body, but now we know that it is in direct correlation with physical disfigurement, and other disabilities. If you want some idea of what I am talking about, feel free to google image search Agent Orange Victims. The thing that makes Agent Orange so horrible, is that it not only hurt the people directly in contact with it, but because of its extremely long half life, it continues to affect the children of anybody affected by it. Vietnam is now in its fourth generation of Agent Orange victims, and they are everywhere.

Working with the clients at DRD was more fulfilling than anything I experienced during this entire semester. I had never worked with disabled people before, and to be honest, the idea of it scared me. But once I was acquainted with the clients, I learned not only that they were not scary at all, but actually some of the strongest, smartest, and most caring people that I have ever met. The first session we had, we had a sheet of paper with questions on it, and we were going around the circle answering the questions. One of them was “If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be?” When I first read the question aloud, I was thrown off. Was this an appropriate question for the circumstances? To my amazement though, the question was answered with things like, “I would make more time in the day”, or, “I would have more money.” Not a single client said that they would change their disabled status. I was completely blown away.

I think that the fact that we were specifically working with victims of Agent Orange made the experience meaningful, but overall, that aspect of it was in no way the reason it was most rewarding. It is easy, as an American, to focus on the fact that it is my country’s fault that they are the way that they are, but mostly, just getting to know them was the most rewarding part. I think that, if tables were turned, Americans would never be so open and loving toward the Vietnamese. They would hate them for generations to come for what was done to them. The Vietnamese welcomed us with open arms. They never once blamed us for what was done to them, and every Tuesday and Thursday they would come into the room beaming, ready to practice their English with more excitement and effort than I have ever seen any American put into learning anything in their entire life.

It is easy, when you grow up withe privilege that I have, to forget how others live. And it is easy, when you see how others live, to hate yourself for living the way that you do, but this semester, I have learned that you cannot change the situation that you were born into, and you don’t have to give up what you have because others don’t, but as long as you make yourself aware of the world, and as long as you care enough to try to spread kindness and love, you will be doing something. Awareness is the first step in beginning to make a difference, and from there, you can find your direction in life.

That’s all for now, I will be in Bali and Lombok for the next two weeks, and I am not sure how much time I will have to write, but I will post when I can.