(Vue 1)Judy VueASA 023/9/2020Thank you to my people.When I was a little girl, I grew up on the south side of Sacramento. My family didn’t livein a nice gigantic house, however, we made it as homey as we could. We stayed in a house wherethere weren’t even enough bedrooms for a family of nine. We enjoyed the long bike rides aroundthe neighborhood, rolling around the grass while looking at roly polys curl up, scraping ourknees because we were so clumsy, we couldn’t even catch ourselves. Sometimes we fight but westill have each other's backs. I loved my family even if we weren’t perfect, we had each other andthat was enough for me.But for a moment in my life, I became curious about the past. What am I? Where did Icome from? Where did my parents come from? I was so curious I kept bugging my parents untilMy father finally gave in. He said, “We are Hmong people from the highlands of Laos andThailand, we have no country for our own people, we thrived off of agriculture and the help ofour own people.” My curiosity didn’t stop there. I knew there was more to it than just beingagricultural farmers. As I grew older, I started to learn more about my own identity and the deepdark history behind the Hmong people. I was rushed with much sadness to learn that my peoplehad suffered in the Secret War which was a war during the time of the Vietnam War and LaotianCivil war who were turning towards the communist side. I mourned for my people, who left theirown homeland to go to restart a new life in a different country as refugees. InFatimah Asghar’spoem of ‘If they should come for us,’she reflects on the ideas of forced migration and the painfultrauma of war.
