I am the oldest child.
I am a 90’s baby (barely).
I am Australian. Second generation.
I am also Vietnamese.
Welcome to the byproduct of having immigrant parents in multicultural Australia.
My life has always had a strong Vietnamese cultural influence, to the point where I found myself running away from it in my youth.
Every Lunar New Year was a chaotic concoction of drunken adults singing karaoke, grandparents bustling in the kitchen, and children running amok.
Every couple months, we had to perform funeral rites for the death anniversary of a distant relative and every time, we left with the heady scent of incense clinging to our death-white garments.
Every distant relative, family friend, and older stranger had to be bowed to and addressed as ‘uncle’ or ‘aunty’ because in this community, we were all family.
The lines between superstition and tradition ran thin in my family, and sometimes, so did my patience
The Vietnamese value collectivist ideals. Australians sway more toward individualism.
In Vietnam, you must put others before you, but in Australia, putting yourself first is the norm. And on top of that, I can’t even tell if these differences are legitimate because I’ve only ever experienced Vietnamese culture through an Australian perspective, as an outsider.
Now, I’m in the process of reclaiming that abandoned identity and sifting through the layers of being Asian-Australian.
There is a saying in Vietnam: If you run after two hares, you’ll catch neither. I used to believe I had to choose between Vietnamese and Australian culture. That I needed to commit to one to be considered ‘enough’.
I chose Australian and in doing so, it felt like I’d left one community for another. Now, I’m in the process of reclaiming that abandoned identity and sifting through the layers of being Asian-Australian.
My dad often intoned (when I would put off doing household chores) that “a swallow does not make a spring”. Although my bilingual abilities were abysmal, I got the gist. It takes more than one person to get the job done. It takes a community. 
It’s a wholesome sentiment but I used to feel really uncomfortable taking part in the Vietnamese cultural community. I didn’t want to be other. I didn’t care much for being “ethnic”. I didn’t want my intelligence to be equated with my skin tone. It’s funny, because I’ve completely flipped opinions. Now, I hate being called “whitewashed”– as if I’m not Vietnamese enough. Maybe what I really dislike is the entitlement of those that label me on sight, regardless of ethnicity or nationality.
What I’ve learned is not to leap to judging others, especially those that remind me of my past self – the awkward girl who resorted to internalizing the racism she faced.
Catch me following more Asian influencers in an attempt to find a community that also struggled within this liminal cultural space. It’s only taken me the last few years in university to begin piecing together how my Asian-Australian experiences have cultivated my personality, values and behaviour.
What I’ve learned is not to leap to judging others, especially those that remind me of my past self – the awkward girl who resorted to internalizing the racism she faced. The Asian-Australians I’ve met are all scattered along the self-actualisation and acceptance spectrum and it isn’t my place to label them naive nor pessimistic. A real ‘DUH’ moment looking back but, sometimes, it takes recognising it in others to understand that I have to be kinder to myself and to others struggling similarly. Everyone learns at their own pace.
I’m not sure I would be here if I hadn’t chosen to study the humanities. The tutors, lecturers, staff and fellow colleagues I’ve met along my journey have all found a place in this community around me, a network of support with opportunities for growth. Even as I write this, I can imagine so many alternate universes in which this wouldn’t have been possible. One side step could have landed me in Japan teaching English or in London interning at a publishing house (fingers crossed that could still happen in the future).
It just goes to show that life, as Forrest Gump so eloquently puts it, is like a box of chocolates except each chocolate is a tangent moment. Every particle of stardust in the cosmos has led to this moment right now, to you reading this article on your screen. Time is infinite they say, yet it isn’t. Like tangent lines converging to meet once before parting forever, each moment is precisely meant to happen how it does. It’s up to us to remember that every action we’ve taken has led to our ‘now’.
For me, this is what it means to be Asian-Australian. With technology enhancing our reach across the globe and multiplying our connections, we are more aware of our differences than ever. The struggle, for some, is in finding ways to reconcile these differences. My heritage is Asian but my home is Australia. My past was the convergence of two separate cultural identities but my present and future are up to me.
I guess the moral of this story is to accept that you are where you are meant to be and it’s up to you to make the change, regardless of your background. Take this tangent moment and make something of it.
And be kind to those who are still working on themselves just as you have to be kind to yourself.
Dianne is a final year student studying a dual Bachelors degree in Communication and Arts. She majors in Writing, Digital Media and Film and Television Studies. She also currently assists with coordinating the UQHASSLIFE Instagram account.