Everything that went down around me when I was born.
My father’s lies uncovered.
When my mom came back to Los Angeles…she saw that my father didn’t have a big house or nice-paying office job.
He was living in a really bad (Mexican) neighborhood…full of gangs, drugs, and poverty. Instead of a big fancy house, it was a really crappy 1-bedroom apartment. That he previously shared with his sister (my “bitch” aunt). His parents sent her to Los Angeles to live with him because she was already “getting old” in Florida with no marriage prospects and they figured his social lifestyle would help her meet Vietnamese guys.
Although her ugly appearance and personality seemed impossible, my dad did find a guy for her…Minh, a short guy with a gimp. A soft pushover and exactly the kind of guy who gets bullied or made fun of, he walked with a gimp. But he did have a funny personality and was really the only guy who took interest in her. The “bitch” and Minh married, gave birth to Anthony, and moved out just before my mom arrived.
My father never did and never would work in an office. He was still doing heavy labor and construction alongside illegal immigrant Mexicans. But my mom didn’t care. She was now pregnant once again and in love, excited to start a new family in a new country. She didn’t care about the shit living conditions or terrible neighborhood away from her family in safe friendly Carmagola, Italy.
My birth lead to my mother’s abandonment by her family.
My parents thought they were having a girl.
All the “official” signs pointed to me being a girl. An old chinese doctor (basically an old man in a basement in Chinatown) waved a rock on a string over her belly and said she was having a girl. Also, her belly was more round than square. And that I never kicked much…I let her sleep peacefully through the night. By their logic, I was most definitely 100% a girl.
So they had pre-chosen my name as Hera…the goddess of marriage and family, protector of women, the sky and the stars of heaven. (Some people shorten it to just “goddess of love”.)
But the day I was born (August 26, 1984)…I came out a boy and shocked my parents. They really had no idea what to call me since they didn’t speak much English and didn’t research boy names.
- My father remembered a cool cartoon with tough soldiers and suggested “G.I.JOE!” but the nurse laughed that it wasn’t a real name.
- My mother remembered a sweet boy in Italy named Jimmy but my dad dismissed it as being a black name.
- The nurse said, “How about Johnny?” and my parents agreed. (Johnny was kind of a show-biz person’s name at the time. Johnny Carson and John Wayne are some examples.)
My mother’s father wanted to visit her when he heard I was born.
He told her over the phone…“I want to see that big house and fancy car, and office job that he promised. I want to see where he’s raising my grandson.”
What he saw when he arrived in Los Angeles broke his heart. His daughter who he loved and escaped the Vietnam war with, who was beloved by family in a safe friendly Italian town…was now living in a dangerous American ghetto in a crappy apartment with a dishonest guy who lied to the whole family.
He told my mother….“LEAVE! This guy has embarrassed and made a fool out of you! He lied to the whole family! He’s not the right man for you, he is not a good man. Leave him. Take your son and come home with me to Italy now…OR NEVER TALK TO US AGAIN!”
My mother couldn’t leave, she was already attached. She intended to make things work. And my grandfather returned to Italy a broken man.
The Bonnie Brae house
My father’s hard work bought a house in a ghetto neighborhood.
Despite all his dishonesty and shady ways, my father really was a hardworking self-made man. He was saving all his money from mowing lawns and construction to buy a house. It just so happened to be that their landlord, a big tall gay black man named “Jack” had a house to sell.
It was the ugliest most neglected house on the street that nobody wanted. People even rumored it was haunted. But my father didn’t care. With his construction skills, he could fix it up no problem. So he bought it…paying the entire deposit in cash and not even signing any document as proof (because he didn’t know anything about contracts). Jack even joked one day that my dad didn’t sign a contract, so he could just run away with his deposit. My father lost sleep over that joke and called Jack up one night threatening, “I’m gonna kill you if you run away with my money.” Jack was terrified and clarified he really was just joking.
My father remodeled the house by himself with the help of some Mexican friends and my mom. The haunted house on Bonnie Brae Street, full of cobwebs and damage was fully renovated to livable status. The transformation was amazing and turned out to be such a great investment. It was a 2-story house (with huge attic) and 5,000sqft of space. Actually an old beautiful Victorian home built for rich people back in the days…but was abandoned by white people during the famous “white flight” of LA as the neighborhood got taken over by ethnic groups.
This house was huge with like 15-20 rooms. It had bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms, bathrooms, attic, and probably also old-school rooms like powder rooms and telephone rooms that were only used back in the days. Like everybody else who bought these types of houses in the ghetto…my dad designated some of the rooms for our family…and then rented out all the other rooms and we lived off the income from that. We had about 9 tenants…some of them single people, some were families. Nearly all of them only Spanish-speaking and only my dad could talk to them.
My father just had to keep the house in working order. Fixing clogged toilets, and other maintenance repairs around the house from time to time, and he was mostly free to do whatever he wanted all day. Much of that time spent being the typical “coffee shop guy” which is a stereotype of guys in Vietnam who hangout at the coffeeshop all day long, chatting and bragging, also hollering at girls passing by. Who knows what else they do when the wives aren’t around.
Once my father bought the house, the bitch (and her husband and Anthony) moved back in with him since it was cheap/discounted rent.
My father and his sister (the “bitch”) treated my mother terribly.
The bitch was already mean and nasty by nature. But she was extra nasty to my mother once I was born.
Unlike her son Anthony who cried all night long and refused to eat, I was a pleasant baby who never cried. The only thing I ever did was eat all my food and smile. But I was the darker-skinned baby whereas Anthony was light-skinned. So adults liked to pick him up first. He just looked cuter and nicer to Vietnamese people who had skin-color prejudices. But he always cried when they picked him up, so then they would try me and I just smiled. The ladies also loved feeding me as a game of seeing who’s cooking was better. “Babies don’t lie” they claimed (while feeding the fat smiley baby who eats everything).
It wasn’t long before I was the popular baby and fussy Anthony was not. My mom was also heavier than the “bitch” who looked really skinny. She often remarked that it was unfair how Johnny sleeps so quietly at night that his mom can rest enough to be fat, whereas Anthony gave her dark circles under her eyes and weight loss.
There was also the traditional Asian family hierarchy factor. The “bitch” was the oldest child whereas my dad was the 4th, so she had authority over my mother (who was considered an extension of my father). She treated my mom terribly. Making her do all the house chores like cooking, cleaning, laundry, trash take-out. All while berating and criticizing her at every point. One day she remarked to my father “Why is Annette drinking milk? Just give her water!” (Milk is a luxury in Vietnam.) And quite often, my father chose to appease his sister rather than his wife.
My father was at best, an unreliable husband…and at worst, a cheating womanizer and abuser.
My mother’s life went downhill as soon as I was born. The romantic prince who wooed her in Italy turned out to be an unreliable and untrustworthy husband. And his family, who was supposed to be her family too, was even meaner to her. She still didn’t speak much English and the only Vietnamese people she knew were my father’s friends…people who adored his charismatic public persona. They probably felt a lowly southerner Vietnamese girl like her should be lucky to have married a cool northerner Vietnamese guy like my father.
When my father wasn’t being mean to my mom or always siding with his sister against her, he was quite distant or unavailable. He would be late to pick her up when she was running errands (for example dropping her off at grocery store but then picking her up much later than the agreed time). Or he hung around the coffeeshop all day long while she dealt with me all by herself. Or maybe he would hang out with his friends and maybe other girls all day long and come home late at night.
My mother had already broken ties to her family (the only people who ever really treated her nicely) and her pride wouldn’t let her come home to them and admit she was wrong. She felt completely alone.
My mother and Minh, the husband of the “bitch”.
My mother’s only relief and person to talk to was actually Minh. The crippled guy that nobody respected, not even his wife. Minh and my mother bonded over being mistreated by their spouses. Confiding and complaining together. There was a time when my mom was crying in the rain waiting at the bus stop with groceries (frustrated that my dad didn’t pick her up on time)…and Minh had happened to be driving by. He gave her a lift home and they really talked a lot.
Some days later, Minh advanced on my mom and she slept with him. When my father came home from work that today, he could immediately feel something was off about her. She told him everything. From that moment on, he gave himself a license to be angry, license to get even, and license to do anything he wanted whenever he wanted.
My father’s entire family turned on my mother.
Everyone turned on her, including Minh (her only so-called friend). He claimed, “I was helpless…she seduced me!” And everybody agreed. Of course she did. He was the helpless crippled pushover guy (not a real man). She was the family slut! The terrible troublemaking wife who dared to seduce her husband’s sister’s husband. What little respect they had for her before…because of her southern roots and sibling hierarchy…they had zero respect for her now. Criticized and mocked at every family dinner. Treated like a criminal and slave. Sometimes the whole family would laugh and pile insults onto her as she could barely keep from crying.
My father’s sister and mother were the worst. They tried to make things as personal as possible and in every way. Not only claiming that she was a horrible wife, but also a horrible person and horrible mother. That her cooking suck. That she didn’t how to bathe her baby (me) properly. That the house wasn’t cleaned right. Nothing done right. And on and on and on. It was kind like Cinderella and the step sisters situation.
NOTE: my brothers and I never knew about the cheating until we were much older. It was the family secret (even known by our cousins) that was kept from us until we were in our twenties. Our whole childhood, we thought my father’s family was just being mean for no reason. They not only looked down on my mother but also the children (me and my brothers) as well.
My father’s ego never recovered.
My father never forgave my mother. And he too, took his family’s side. Making himself more of a victim and criticizing my mother, taking zero part in her infidelity. It bothered him so much not only because of the cheating, but because my mother messed around with (in his words) “a total loser, a cripple”. He was going to be hurt, ashamed, and bothered by this forever. The only rightful thing in his mind was to punish her as much as he could. Forgiveness, therapy, or divorce was not considered.
How dare she sleep with another man while he was out working so hard, toiling away 12 hours everyday in the hot sun. He got so angry, he wanted her to die. But he didn’t want to kill her because he’d go to jail. So he gave her a gun one night and demanded that she kill herself (to pay for her sin, and his shame/humiliation).
- He said, “I’m taking Johnny to the top of the roof and if I don’t hear that gun go off…I will let him fall!”
She cried but couldn’t bring herself to pull the trigger. My father never heard the gun go off, but he could bring himself to let me fall either. He dangled my infant body off the roof just like his father had done to him (as punishment when he was a kid). His father only threatened him but never actually let go. And neither did my father.