This
letter is written from the perspective of a Vietnamese shrimper, Khang T. Bui,
to the young black man who is the shoe shiner in Elia Kazan’s America, America. This exchange is inspired by Toni Morrison’s
reference to Vietnamese shrimpers and the story of the young black shoe shiner
in the beginning of her article. Khang
T. Bui is a real Vietnamese shrimper who appears in the article, “Still
Shrimping: Vietnamese American shrimpers 25 years after the second wave,” to
tell his story. Of course this
representation of Khang T. Bui takes many creative liberties for the purposes
of this assignment. (http://www.asianweek.com/2003/08/29/still-shrimping-vietnamese-american-shrimpers-25-years-after-the-second-wave/)
“Quickly,
but as casually as an afterthought, a young black man, also a shoe shiner,
enters and tries to solicit a customer.
He is run off the screen – ‘Get out of here! We’re doing business here!’
– and silently disappears.” -Toni Morrison
April 1, 1980
Dear Brother,
I know you have long since passed away, or perhaps
you’re still alive, or maybe you’re a fiction which I now take to represent those
black men who have suffered to find a place in this White world. I wonder if Elia Kazan made you up, or you
were a part of Kazan’s uncle’s immigrant story, which I understand inspired the
film you appear in, America, America. Whatever, the case, this letter is for you.
Let me tell you, when I first arrived from Vietnam I
believed everything I was “supposed” to believe about black people. I believed that black men were troublemakers,
were criminals, that the black man was the reason why I had a hard time finding
a job. It did not help that I hated the
Black American soldiers who came and treated us so horribly . . . I saw those
soldiers in every black face I saw when I first arrived in America. It was not until later that I learned most black
men did not want to come to my country in the first place . . .
I am now writing to you because after watching that last
scene in America, America, when
Stavros chases you away, I think I finally get it, or at least I have had a
moment of clarity. It took me a
longtime, after much time in America, but watching you really invoked a feeling
of sympathy in me. Now that I am here,
and now that I have experienced a little of America, and now that I have
learned a little more of your history, things have become more clear.
When I finally found a job as a shrimper on the
Texas coast, you wouldn’t believe how happy I was! I had been unemployed for
quite some time, and I was struggling to support my wife and three children. When my longtime friend wrote to me and invited
me to come and work for him, it was something which I couldn’t believe to be
true. Once I arrived he immediately let
me captain one of his small boats. Having
raised shrimp when I was in Vietnam, and having known the industry, my friend
immediately put me in charge of a boat, and I set to work! Little did I know
the struggles that I would endure… We daily faced the verbal jibes of the white
fisherman, and that was the best of it.
All we wanted to do was shrimp, live, and support our families, but it
was clear that they did not want us there.
When they started physically attacking us it became scary, and for a
moment I contemplated quitting. I was tired of being scared, tired of being
harassed by the arrogant white fisherman.
When Sau Van Nguyen killed the white fisherman who knocked him down,
stood on his hand, and cut his chest, that man Billy Joe Aplin, I am saddened
to say that I rejoiced. I thought that
might put an end to the verbal and physical harassment, but then the KKK
came. Why do they hate us so much I
asked myself? There’s enough shrimp for us all to share, what is wrong with
these men?
Seeing you being chased away from that potential
client in America, America made me
realize for the first time that I relate to you more than these white fishermen
who continue to abhor my existence and wish me away.
Now in Solidarity,
Khang T. Bui
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