The Spectrum Center and the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs hosted poet Hieu Minh Nguyen at the Michigan Union Thursday evening. About 40 University of Michigan students and community members attended to hear Nguyen read selected poems and speak on his intersectional Queer, Vietnamese and American identities. The event was a part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which runs from mid-March to mid-April.
LSA senior Jamie Perlman introduced Nguyen, award-winning author of “Not Here” and “This Way to the Sugar.” Perlman told attendees how important these events are to them and to other students who hold intersectional identities.
“It means a lot to me as someone who is both Asian American and part of the Queer community to be here this evening,” Perlman said. “In higher education, there aren’t a ton of intersectional spaces where we can embrace all of our intersectional identities, and sometimes that means we can feel a disconnect between these identities. … It is so important to me that events like this are put on so students like me can be recognized, seen and respected on campus.”
Nguyen opened by speaking about his childhood. He grew up as the son of a single mother in a Vietnamese immigrant household in the Midwest, and said his mother inspires much of his writing.
“I write a lot about our relationship, not because I think it is special or unique, but I think … it is a source of curiosity for me.” said Nguyen. “I used poetry for the longest time to talk about my own life and how I wanted people to understand my story, but I realized I can also use poetry as a way to understand other people as well.”
Nguyen continued by sharing that his relationship with his mother has not always been an easy one, since his American and Queer identities have not always meshed with her traditional Vietnamese upbringing.
“I came out to my mother when I was 14. … I had a lot of white friends who were telling me about their coming out experiences and talking about how their families were accepting,” Nguyen said. “Somehow it made me feel as if I would have a similar experience. But when I did come out to my mom … she told me I was sick and I needed to see a doctor.”
He told the audience that his relationship with his mother was very nearly a casualty of their cultural and generational divide. Only through his work has Nguyen been able to understand his mother and empathize with her.
“It took me a really long time to understand that my mother came to America in the ’80s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic … and I think that’s why she was so scared,” Nguyen said. “But I didn’t register that fear, and I only took it as rejection, and it has created a distance in our relationship that I have only been able to bridge through writing.”
Art & Design junior Angeline Tran told The Michigan Daily about the first time they came across Nguyen’s poetry, and the kinship they developed with his work.
“There was such a craving in my freshman year to find other Viet poets or to just have other Asian American writers, because for so long I had been craving having literature that reflects that experience,” Tran said.
Throughout the event, Nguyen emphasized that his writing has been profoundly influenced by his overlapping identities and his relationships with the people and the world around him. Nguyen concluded the event with some parting advice to attendees.
“Writing doesn’t always look like sitting down and writing,” Nguyen said. “It looks like living sometimes. A writer is like a sponge; we’re collecting things all the time until we’re ready to squeeze it out onto the page.”
Daily News Contributor Lyra Wilder can be reached at lyrawild@umich.edu.