How Acting Brought Me Closer to my Roots

So I have never been proud of being Asian-American, per se. I grew up in a rural white community

in Oregon, and my last name is so jumbled up that no one can really pronounce it, including

myself. To be honest, I still don't really know how to pronounce my name correctly. But I grew up

without my dad. I grew up with a white mom, and I grew up primarily playing white roles because

I'm an actor. And this all changed when I got a casting call for a play called Vietgone that was

going on that company one in Boston, my junior year of college. Up until then, I'd only played roles

in like Neil Simon plays and like been an ensemble member and like The King and I and like Miss

Saigon. So nothing that you'd really want to be in.

And basically I remember seeing the casting breakdown and it was just such a drastic change from

what I'm used to usually doing. It was Vietnamese. It was said in 1975, Camp Pendleton,

California, and my dad never really talked about the war. He never mentioned anything about it

because it wasn't exactly a pleasant time for him. But I did know that he was in Camp Pendleton in

1975, California, in April when he emigrated from Saigon, Vietnam. And so knowing that was going

to step on my dad's shoes was a crazy idea, especially like as his son, and also playing like a fully

realized Vietnamese-American character on stage who could express his sexuality, who can say

the F-word and who wasn't basically like an extra in Apocalypse Now. It was super sick. Basically,

I, like, went through this really crazy process of about 12 weeks of preparing for the role in which I

had to relearn Southern Vietnamese dialect. And for this, I actually had to interview my dad and

ask him about like the dialect that he'd experienced as a kid so I could pick it up myself.

Now, it all paid off opening night for me, really, Because I remember stepping on stage. Actually, I

rolled on stage on a motorcycle because I was a badass motorcyle dude, and I looked in the

audience and my dad had came and surprised me.

And I just remember like seeing his face while he, like, looked at his kid playing him, basically, and

this really pivotal time in his life, which is like 1975 and Camp Pendleton, and just sort of seeing in

his eyes how important that was to see his story on stage and to see his narrative played out, let

alone by his own son in America 40 years later. And it just filled me with a lot of pride. I came out

and I saw my dad and he was like, totally like this, just in tears. And he gave me a big hug. And I

think everyone was very touched and moved in the cast to sort of see that moment of recognition

that he had. So as a theater maker, that experience is extremely impactful to the way I create art

now and the way I see representation in the theater.