Born in the Middle of Nowhere

My earliest memory is playing with my big brother Ricky in the backyard. I must’ve been around 3 or 4 years old. His laughter was gruff while pushing me higher and higher on the swing. Alas, I couldn't hold on any longer and let go of the chain setting myself in flight. I must've landed what seemed to be a few miles down the road. I was scared, cried, and yelled out for mama. A few feet of air and distance at that age and it’s the end of the world.

Ricky was always mean to me. He’d call me nasty racist names and hit me a lot—hard, too. I figured it was because his skin was browner than mine though our main differences were with my almond-shaped eyes. Well, that and we looked nothing alike. Not even with our parents.

We were both adopted by Jack and Delia Maddox within our first year of life. But I didn’t know for sure until I got older. We didn’t talk much about it. I thought it was rather hypocritical of the racist comments when Ricky himself looked like he must’ve come from somewhere south of the border. I guess it didn't help matters when I would call him Ricardo as a counter tease.

Our parents are white. We also have a little sister, Amelia. She looked a lot like mama with her blonde hair and greenish eyes. She had dad's smirk and dimples. They were nice enough as family; except I could tell there was a bias between Amelia versus us boys.

I guess I was around 5 years old when I started asking about my birth parents. My folks would tell me it didn’t matter, and they had no idea. They’d just repeat that God had a plan to put us into their lives and care and we were all that mattered. But their actions didn’t feel like it.

Amelia got all the attention and Ricky and me, well, we didn’t. Maybe it’s because she was their only girl. Maybe because she was from their gene pool. Who knows? I didn’t dare ask because they got grumpier the more I probed.

Over time, I became more resentful of what I felt was meanness and avoidance. I felt people stare at me and Ricky when in public. I could feel the other kids staring and laughing at us in the mostly white school. Everywhere. We were stared at. I could feel it under my skin.

I hated wondering where in the world someone might look like me because it sure wasn’t under our family’s roof.

At about 13 years of age or so, I finally had a great outburst where my skin turned beet red and I was screaming and trembling because they kept avoiding my questions about my birth parents and origins. I had enough!

I guess it was a good thing because I feared another whipping. Instead, mama and daddy sent Amelia out to play with her friends and sat with Ricky and me in the living room for a long talk.

Jack and Delia told us our story the best they could recollect. It felt genuine.

They started with Ricky as he was in tears whereas I was settling down from huffing and puffing. Mama embraced him while wiping tears away with a tissue.

“Ricky,” mama started, “when your daddy and I met at Hardin-Simmons back in Abilene, we fell in love quickly. I think it was a combination of his quick wit and handsome looks. It wasn’t long before we knew we’d get married and wanted to start a family. Fast forward a few years, we got married and tried having babies. But God must've had a different plan for us. For a few years, we couldn’t get pregnant as much as we prayed and prayed. The doctor did some testing and said I couldn’t have kids. So, we figured it was God’s way of telling us we needed to adopt children and have a blended family. So, we did. One day, I was talking with my old college roommate—you remember Jan, the lady with the funky horn-rimmed glasses—and she told me one of her family’s housekeeper’s teenage daughters was pregnant, but they were too poor and she was too young to raise a child. I think she was only around 15 at the time. So, after some discussion, your daddy and I approached her. I don’t remember much about her other than she had beautiful long, straight, black hair with beautiful dark brown eyes. Her name was Juanita, but I don’t remember her last name. We came to an agreement. We paid her hospital bills and had a closed adoption. That means they wouldn’t have contact with any of us. Once you were born, you went straight into my arms and that was the last of that. I don't know if that was the right thing to do but we felt at the time it was important for us that you had all our attention and focus. Jan told me a few years ago she heard rumors they moved down to the Valley around McAllen to start their own cleaning business. That’s all I know about your past. I never asked their nationality but always assumed perhaps they were Mexican. And we couldn't be happier that you entered our lives.”

Ricky stayed quiet while looking down at his shoes deep into his own thoughts. When asked if he had questions, he slowly nodded no.

Mom then turned to me lifting my chin to see her eyes while wiping away my tear streaks. “Michael, your story with us began on a boat. I know y’all studied the Vietnam War in history class. Remember that?” I nodded.

“Well, after that war, there were waves of Vietnamese families trying to escape the communist regime. They wanted a better life, so they came to America. But they were also very poor. Your daddy and I were watching the news and saw a sad story about a group of families who made it all the way across the Pacific Ocean on a fishing vessel. That was in 1978. They were inflicted with sickness and were starving but determined to get here. They were called the Vietnamese boat people or refugees. Your family was part of a convoy of fishing boats and I was told you were born somewhere over the ocean while in transit. Somehow, your family was picked up by people who exploited Vietnamese families who paid them to get started with new lives. Your birth family ended up in Corpus Christi and worked for a shrimp boat operator since your birth father had experience doing that back home. One of the news clips showed your mother holding you in her arms on the boat and she tried to urge the newscaster to take you away. She didn’t speak a lick of English, but she kept trying to give you to him. That absolutely broke our hearts. The newscaster said he was calling CPS while in the broadcast. You know what? You were famous and on TV,” mama explained.

She continued, “So daddy and I saw your adorable little face and knew what we had to do. After a lot of phone calls, we reached the CPS office who knew about you and after some time, they allowed us to foster you. After a couple of years, that turned into the adoption. We loved you ever since we laid eyes on you. Sadly, I don’t know any more about your family beyond what we saw on TV. CPS wasn’t allowed to share for whatever reason. And it never mattered to us. All we needed to know was that God brought you to be with us.”

I too found myself looking at my feet. I felt dizzy and lost. But I was relieved to know about my origins.

I was a boy with no birth nation.

I was born over the water in the middle of nowhere.

I quickly looked up at my parents and said, “So, you lied to us. You said you couldn’t have your own children. Then explain Amelia! What was God’s plan there? Have her so we can be the red-headed step-children?”

I was distraught, angry, and scared all at once. My mind was numb and my mouth was on fire.

“Michael, we figure it was a miracle and we don’t question God’s plan. We accepted it. We were thrilled to find out I was finally blessed with a pregnancy that resulted in Amelia. It wasn’t planned but it was welcomed. The doctors still don’t know the reason why we were finally able to get pregnant after all the years of trying. But we did. Sometimes, things just happen. And we love her just as much as we love you,” mama said. Daddy nodded in agreement.

“Liars! You treat us differently than you do her. I think it’s because we don’t look like y’all. We don’t come from y’all,” I accused as I cried uncontrollably.

“Son, I can’t tell you enough how much you boys mean to us and you always will. There’s nothing I can say or do that will change your minds. One day, you’ll just have to accept it and move on with your lives. Until then, we will always be here for you,” daddy said, "Always."

That day passed into months and then into years.

I lived my life with them and ceased talking about the adoption story now that my appetite was whet. I eventually left the Podunk town of Ballinger and my family after high school graduation and joined the Army.

After a couple of years moving around in the service, I was stationed at Camp Casey in Dongducheon, South Korea along the DMZ. It was strange being around people that looked like me, except that I had a tan and they were substantially paler than me. They were a very polite but quiet people.

Being in those surroundings stirred up old feelings again about my origin. But I know my birth family was from Vietnam. I’d spend my spare time at the base library, but they had nothing to help with research, so I just read as much about the Vietnam War from the US perspective as they had—military propaganda is all we were fed.

There was a soldier in my unit named Dung Nguyen who came from a Vietnamese family. Everyone was given a nickname or referred by a shortened name. Mine was Tex-Mex because I always reminisced about missing the food from back home. But Dung didn’t need a nickname. His name was already cool as it was though I suspect other Vietnamese Americans might not take to the teasing of such a name. Dung embraced it like a champ.

Dung and I became fast friends. Yes, a common origin had much to do with it, but he was a cool customer. He was even keeled and took everything in stride with an analytical approach. He accepted me like a brother. I later learned after a few beers that his name Dung meant brave or heroic. The “d” in his name was also pronounced with a “z” as in Dzung instead of the fecal jokes he was bestowed. I liked his explanation a lot better than the Americanized pronunciation.

At a bar one frigid evening, Dung shared with me he was also a boat refugee and that his family also ended up as shrimpers in nearby Rockport, just a tad south of Corpus Christi. Apparently, there was a significant amount of them settling there and had quite the shrimp fleet. I shared with him the story mama told me. He said he understood his family arrived a year after mine did.

On a whim, I asked if he heard my story. He nodded yes and said, “Well, I heard a lot of stories like yours. My parents told us that many kids that arrived were given up for adoption because several families had too many kids and couldn’t care for them all being dirt poor. They just wanted their kids to have a better life while they focused on the older ones.”

“Lucky me,” I said sarcastically.

“Hey, yes. Lucky you!” Dung explained, “so many families remained poor and would work on the shrimp boats without a proper education. The racism was tough, and the Vietnamese kids were taunted and bullied all the time. I was one of the lucky ones. My parents ran a store. I helped run it, but they made me finish my education despite it. You were lucky because you had a family that could provide what many couldn’t. Don’t knock it, man. You could’ve ended up in a much worse situation. You were given a second chance at life.”

I liked his perspective. He had an upbeat attitude whereas it was always me against the world. I wanted to be like that.

Dung and I became brothers in everyway except DNA, at least from what I knew. Though I care deeply for my own adopted brother Ricky, in the past couple of years, I felt a much deeper connection with Dung. Perhaps it was all we went through and all we had in common.

After we finished our four-year stint, I attended Texas Tech thanks to the GI Bill and earned my Ph.D. in History with a focus on Vietnam Studies. I figured if I was going to learn more about myself, why not find a path that aligns.

I met my future bride while working part-time at the Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive on campus. Julie worked there after obtaining her degree in library sciences. She was a beautiful mix with a white father and Japanese mother. More importantly, she got me. She seemed to understand all my quirky nuances. We hit it off right away.

A couple of years later, we married, and I was then offered a teaching position at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington.

That meant we’d be near Dung.

He ended up relocating to Portland, Oregon to work for Nike, just under a two-hour drive away. He always did like his sneakers. That was good enough for me, I accepted the position with Julie’s blessing, of course.

After our relocation to Lacey, we spent a lot of time with Dung and his little family, probably monthly. His toddler son Tim looked a lot like him.

Besides being Army brothers, Dung and I had such a strong kinship that I felt like I belonged. There was a familiarity between his family and mine with Julie being half-Asian herself. We shared our Army experience. Our maturing friendship was completely organic. I know race shouldn’t be a thing. After all, we all belong to the human race, right? But when you don’t feel like you belong and never had, you tend to seek out some way of getting a sense of belonging. Or, at least that’s how it was for me.

It also felt good living in the Great Northwest where Asians weren’t a minority. For the second time in my life, I felt I was where I belonged. Heck, we even elected the first governor in the United States who was of East Asian descent, Gary Locke.

I gave up the notion to search for my birth family while occasionally keeping in touch with my adopted family. Distance made things tough but get togethers were more cherished as a result.

The way I figure it, my long search had come to an end.

I finally figured out that family is what you make of it. My life-long internal struggle culminated into an embraced acceptance.

Perhaps one day I’ll take one of those DNA spit tests. I’m not sure I want to know answers. Perhaps I will feel more differently in time.

But for now, I’m happy to go back down to Portland again this weekend. The only searching I need in my life right now is found in my own home and a two-hour drive south of here.