My South End

Years ago my dad promised we would buy a house near the library, 

because I loved books. 

My mother bought that house for us 

eventually in Beechmont.

Before Beechmont, my South end was Taylor Boulevard.

I watched the Derby goers parade once—rich and poor alike 

strutting down the street in their hot pink, blue and lime green 

suits and feathers and heels pouting against the concrete, 

because rich or not, winners or not, they all are reduced

 to walking on their own two feet.

Cars zoom by so fast down Taylor; they don’t want to see 

the man on the corner, sign saying, “Anything would help.” 

Bus stops housing sallow faces, paying in changes we can’t afford

rent rising, cars broken in, people dying, librarian 

pleading--save the youths. Hold the guns. Even

the needle exchange van keeps moving.

Before Taylor it was Americana, 

the apartment complex that housed new immigrants and refugees. 

We were taught, tell the bus driver “Americana” 

and he’ll bring you home. Americana 

is now a community center, once founded to serve the complex’s residents. 

Americana Community Center took its name and moved out, 

now still serving immigrants and refugees.

The East enders gush about South end’s diversity in ethnicity, 

but 

they don’t live here.

They know and love Vietnam Kitchen. But 

do they know Thúy Vân, Á Châu, Chilakiles,

La Riviera Maya and La Guanaquita? 

Diversity is more than one.

Tree-lined Southern Parkway is so green—

envy well watered with silence—muffling buses hissing by on all kinds of streets except the prettiest part of the boulevard, 

where sidewalks stretch 

wider than houses just the next block over.

Only there can the aging poor and the newly welcomed afford to live.

We can all hear the 1AM fireworks months after the Fourth of July.

Everyone’s favorite is Iroquois Park, 

where Southern Parkway meets Taylor Boulevard, 

where Beechmont meets Iroquois, 

where the middle class meets 

no one.

I wish people would love Iroquois public library 

as much as Iroquois Park, 

where you not only see people, but also meet people. 

There, Sophie Maier, the city’s first Immigrant Services Librarian, will tell you, 

“Say hi” and “come help.”

The Beechmont folks complain on the neighborhood’s Facebook group about the area’s diversity 

in income and struggles, 

and “the homeless,” 

and strangers knocking on doors. 

A stranger knocked on our door: 

“Your mother’s garden is beautiful.” 

My mother is never shy at saying hi. 

Our neighbor shared his patch of garden with her. 

She was the first to know his name. 

My mother moved away last year. 

This year the patch is still 

sprinkled with purple tía tô, and amaranth still 

snuck in between his kale, cherry tomatoes and muskmelons.  

“Someone left free aloe plants in the Woodlawn gazebo,” my mother texted.

My neighbor said, “My mother used to know everyone on this street and all the blocks around.” 

I worried when he and my brother talked about shooting whoever stole his mowing equipment. 

Some Beechmont folks planned Black Lives Matter protests on Southern Parkway. Cars honked driving by our signs. My neighbor’s daughter raised her fist in solidarity. The next day, their door window said ACAB. She loves books too.

The Welcome Academy 

I went on a date once, with a white man who asked me about my English name.

He called me a liar when I said I didn’t have one. 

I had a professor once who butchered my name.

My classmates laughed. 

I laughed too, and told him why. He countered “I’m pretty sure that was how you told me to say it.”

I’m pretty sure I didn’t. 

Now, I’m attending a leadership training program hosted by 

the Mayor’s office, 

for foreign-born individuals. 

So we can welcome—

“assist and empower” 

our communities into this compassionate city.

After the first day, I told my partner,  “I introduced my name as Uyên in the Welcome Academy today. My name keeps changing, but it’s becoming more true.” 

27 years later, I again found the confidence to introduce my name the way it was born: Uyên.

not Uyen

not win 

not when 

not where. 

Yesterday, a participant in the Academy, the only white male in the group, asked me if I had an English name. 

The question reduced me 

again

to the little Vietnamese woman 

who was raised 

to accommodate. My voice, choked,

shrank.

“No, I don’t. 

My name is Uyên.

Some people call me wuhoen because 

it’s easier.”

Just like that, the new life my voice found when it said Uyên got choked away. 

There’s something about being called the way your parents named you that brings you home. 

There’s something about being challenged about your chosen name that questions whether or not you are truly or wholly 

welcomed.

And reminds you that perhaps you’re not home. 

There’s something about having your name questioned that chokes the breath out of
you,  

your name, the umbilical cord to the language that birthed you and feeds you.