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MISREADING

A Feminist Library

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STACKS

Inhale the Air of Tiger Balm / Hít vào không khí dầu con hổ

CINDY NGUYEN

In 2017 while in Hanoi, I wrote this poem in English about my grandmother. It remained in draft version as I worked on the translation, feeling inadequate and lost. During this month of Black April and remembrance, I remember them both by finally letting it go.

[Read more…] about Inhale the Air of Tiger Balm / Hít vào không khí dầu con hổ

Bà Ngoại: A Call and Response

CINDY NGUYEN

To you Grandmother,
Love your bạn, em, chị, cháu [friend, younger sister, older sister, granddaughter]:

Bà đâu rồi, cháu siêu nhớ bà.
Bà có nhớ cháu của bà không?
[Where are you grandmother? Granddaughter painfully misses you so.
Does grandmother remember her granddaughter?]

And you respond,

Hôm nay tôi mệt quá. Thôi đi về đi, tôi có nhiều việc làm.
[Today I am so tired. Sigh, go home. I’m really busy.]

Today you are tôi and I the distant stranger.

[Read more…] about Bà Ngoại: A Call and Response

Imagining ‘America’: My Mother’s Refugee Journey to America

CINDY NGUYEN

For much of my life I had dreamt of one day writing down my family’s refugee narrative. I had envisioned a beautiful photo, audio, and essay project that would do justice to their story. But I never quite got there.

I would begin to write, transcribe her words, and then weep. Putting into words her refugee story somehow made it real. It was not just a distant tale of heroism, escape, and hope. It was my mother, my family, me, who lived this reality.

[Read more…] about Imagining ‘America’: My Mother’s Refugee Journey to America

Hello, MISSTEP

CINDY NGUYEN

Currently: I am re-examining my relationship to my body–that forgotten instrument, a vehicle of my consciousness, an extension of self, my best friend and foe.

[Read more…] about Hello, MISSTEP

a two-step misstep to the clackety clacks of computer keys

CINDY NGUYEN

Command + A step here.
Control + Zipper. No, zebra. A zigging and zagging and surrender to the zephyr on my cheek.
Option + Alt you. You hilarious tease of forgotten functions.

//

Mavis Beacon, did you say something?
I can’t hear you between the patterned pecks of perfect precision.
Move/Be/Do Here, there. now. Everywhere. Nowhere.

Boolean
y
n
CAPSLOCK n.o.
Return to

\\

A song in my stomach, twisted into computerized contortions
A wellspring of movement, made mistakenly malicious.

The way you make me feel, I make me feel, I make me me.
Seeps out, secretly through the meticulous cracks of caked fears.

An
inhale
exhale.

A nod. Then two.
A twitch of the finger
tips of the toes bounce in the tight space between.

>>> spam = ‘A mischievous literary litany’
>>> spam

A sly smile, a knowing glance
to the Miss Step, who was always there,
here
everywhere
and nowhere.

+++++

eric-kim-photography-gopro-pov-temple-cindy-8720437
eric-kim-photography-gopro-pov-temple-cindy-8720543

—

Shibuya, Tokyo 2018

Written to the rhythm of Dirty Computer, Janelle Monae.

eric-kim-photography-kyoto-2018-8670387
eric-kim-cindy-night-kyoto-leading-lines-portrait-0619483-2000x1325
eric-kim-photography-kyoto-2018-8670193-2000x1337

An Asian American’s Language of Mental Health: Empowerment and Understanding through Conversation

CINDY NGUYEN

I never learned the word ‘mental health’ in English (my language of primary expression) until my 20’s. It took nearly another decade until I actually began to understand what that even meant. I am still learning this word in Vietnamese (my language of communication with my parents).

However, language is more than the sum of vocabulary words. Language is context, subtle unspoken gestures, symbolic actions and its mis/interpretations. Language is when my mom made me canh khổ qua (bittermelon soup, my favorite) after I mumbled through tears that I needed to get mental health support.

[Read more…] about An Asian American’s Language of Mental Health: Empowerment and Understanding through Conversation

Open Letter: To all the responses to “Mẹ [Mom], Translated” Project and “The Undeniable Force of Khó Khăn” Film

CINDY NGUYEN

The past week the responses to my announcement of my project “Mẹ [Mom], Translated” and my recent film “The Undeniable Force of Khó Khăn” has been overwhelming.

[Read more…] about Open Letter: To all the responses to “Mẹ [Mom], Translated” Project and “The Undeniable Force of Khó Khăn” Film

Introducing “Mẹ [Mom], Translated”

CINDY NGUYEN

Dear friends,

I am sharing with you meaningful news of my project “Mẹ [Mom], Translated,” because you have helped to contribute to its fruition in some way shape or form–from teaching me about Vietnamese history, language, and Asian American identity to empowering my artistic voice to write, express, and share my work.

“Mẹ [Mom], Translated” is a mixed-media art project on love, language, memory and everything lost in translation. Inspired by the work of Viet Thanh Nguyen, I made this project intentionally not for the dominant audience. Rather, I sought to dwell on the act of translation — that universal human yearning to understand and be understood. Vietnamese words in the pieces are not always translated to English because I wanted to convey the complexity of comprehension/miscomprehension between different languages, generations, and also through the nostalgic and bittersweet filters of memory.However, I explain the concepts through poetic voice and through visual symbols, actions, and subtle gestures.

[Read more…] about Introducing “Mẹ [Mom], Translated”

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