Introductory Blog

Where I'm From

I am from Supap and Larry,

    named “Janet Marie” by my father, my mother not

    knowing what she might name a white child.

I am from a house in Bangkok,

    where the gardener trims the lawn with scissors,

    and maids marry their white employers;

From a little white house in Annapolis,

    where my mom and I learn English by watching

    The Flintstones, and I swing on a swing-set

    with neighbors who look like me;

From a tenth-floor apartment in San Jaun,

    where I ride my red car back and forth on

    a four-by-eight foot patio, learning my ABC’s

    and “hola,” “gracias,” “no hablo”;

From a townhouse in Taipei, where I get on a blue

    school bus and get lost in school, “ni hao”

    not enough to get me back to my classroom;

From a series of middle-class homes from Massachusetts

    to Colorado, never resting,

From mostly clinging to my mother,

    hiding behind her whenever anyone

    says, “What a sweet little girl.”

I am from mayonnaise sandwiches and

    balls of sticky rice with larb.

I am from Buddhism and Atheism,

    Water Festivals at the temple, tears

    because my mother is not close enough

    to home to feed her mother’s ghost,

    and my father’s voice, “There’s no such

    thing as ghosts.”

I am from moving, moving,

Until now

    half-way between Bennet and Palmyra,

    claiming neither, always driving,

    still living in-between.

When I was a GTA in English at Oklahoma State in 1998, the Director of Composition decided to move the focus of Composition I to one based on place. At the time, I was quite angry about this emphasis. I had never lived anywhere long enough to actually feel connected to a place, and the last thing I wanted to do was read hundreds of essays about Oklahoma. Pregnant with my first child, I had been thinking it might be better to have a job than to be a student, so I left before the change took place.

Thirteen years later, I'm ready to think about place.

I'm afraid I was taking "writing about place" a little too literally. I also hadn't thought about the fact that it might have been just as interesting to write about non-place and alienation from place. As I read Brooke and McIntosh, Lyon, and Pipher this week, I started thinking about how I could incorporate these place-based assignments into my classes. As I wrote my own "I Am From" poem, I realized the value of such an exercise and how writing such poems can be a meaningful experience for my own students.

Khon Kaen, Thailand, my mother's home

As a child, I was like my father, always excited about the next move. I was born in Bangkok, Thailand to a Thai mother and American father. When my father realized that his job didn't allow him to be married, we quickly moved to America. There, we lived close to some of the most important people in my life, my great aunt and uncle, Ot (so-named because my father could not pronounce Lois when he was little) and J.O. (James Otis). It was their house in McLean, Virginia that was the closest to a consistent home that I would ever get. No matter where we lived, we would come back to Virginia for summers. At the same time, it was the people that I loved--not the place. I was somewhat terrified of their house, sure that there were ghosts in the basement. I was rarely alone in any room.




J.O., me, and horse next door



Supap and Larry, my parents

My parents missed Thailand, though, and wanted to move back, but the closest they could get was Taiwan, where I had my first schooling experiences. I remember watching the neighborhood children getting on the blue school bus and wishing I could go with them. One day, as I was watching the kids get on the bus, my neighbor's mother motioned that I could get on the bus as well. I followed my neighbors and found myself in a Chinese school, but I didn't know any Chinese. I sat quietly at my desk, watching the teacher and other children. But I'm sure I didn't do anything. At one point, I became lost, most likely after lunch, but I didn't know how to ask for help. When I was older, my parents told me that they just assumed I'd learn Chinese since kids learn language so quickly. I'm sure I picked up some of it, but when they realized sitting in a Chinese classroom would not make me fluent, they moved me to a Missionary school. I loved it, and I have loved school ever since.

I hate the question, "Where are you from?" I don't know. After Taiwan, we moved to Massachusetts, then Arizona, back to Massachusetts and then to Colorado. For college, I went to Minnesota, then back to Colorado. For grad school, I randomly went to Alabama and met my husband, someone so rooted in place that he thought living an hour and a half away from his hometown was not good enough. Despite his deepest wish to live in his hometown again, we have lived in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and now Nebraska again. Three and a half hours from home will have to do for him.

My early memories are of clinging to my mother or father to protect me from the places we lived in or visited. In Bangkok one day, there was such a powerful rainstorm that all of the bugs started crawling out of the sewers, so many that the streets became rivers of roaches and centipedes. Under an awning, I crawled to the top of my father's shoulders, as he flicked a bug off my leg. In our American houses, my mother would casually tell me about the ghosts that lived in each of our houses. In our house in Northboro, Massachusetts, my mother told me that the ghosts there had told her we could live there, but that we should keep the noise down. I could not bear to go to sleep in that house. I would sneak downstairs and hide on the steps near my parents until they were ready to go to bed.

Northern Thai Cuisine

I felt most at home at school, but I have little memory of the physical places. I loved reading, writing, and listening to the teachers' voices. I have been teaching since I was twenty-one, and it seems that each office space I've had has gotten progressively worse--from an enclosed office with a window to a cubicle with the only window in the room bricked over and painted white. As my college gets ready to build its new addition, we are all grumbling that our new offices will be cubicles in the basement, no windows, no light. But I am here for the students' voices. Most of the time, I forget that I live in a grey cubicle world.

Work Space



Under Construction

 As an adult, I decided that my children should feel like they belong somewhere. We have lived in Nebraska for the past nine years, and this is their home. We lived for four years in Lincoln, but in search of an acreage for my husband and a new house (without ghosts) for me, we moved to a mini-acreage between Bennet and Palmyra. My oldest was in fourth grade at the time, and we found that the transition to a small-town school was harder than we thought it would be. He was called "city-slicker" and never quite fit in. Now, we take him to Lincoln for school, while the others still go to Bennet, and I feel a bit like a traitor to our little district--but can't bear to see my child unhappy.

Bennet/Palmyra Bus

We live in what many might consider a dream house, with a view of a small lake and fishing privileges to that lake. The neighborhood is small enough that we know each neighbor, and the children play outside, catching bugs, riding bikes freely, and exploring through the weeds.

Youngest child on freshly mowed trail

When my oldest was in a talent show, and he was asked by the MC where he was from, he answered, "Outside of Bennet a little bit.. between Bennet and...uhh," and the MC laughed, "Poor, poor boy, he doesn't even know where he lives." The audience laughed, but I realized that he had no more claimed our hometown address than I had.

But for our younger children, between Bennet and Palmyra is home, and no matter where we go, our third child proclaims that home is better. After a vacation to Colorado, he said, "Home is better than that field trip we were just on." At seven, he tells me that he will always live with me in our house--until I die. Then he will be the one to bury me. "Where would you like to be buried?" he asked me in all sincerity.

I still don't know the answer.