Chapter One – The Photo Book

 

I suppose I should start by introducing myself: I’m Marilag Anderson or Mary. I live in Los Angeles, California with my mom, my dad, my older brother Jason and my younger sister Ava. Oh, and did I mention I’m Korean-Italian-Mexican-Vietnamese-Scottish-Japanese?

You likely didn’t catch all of that at first glance, and I certainly didn’t either. Having so many cultures in your blood is certainly a lot to take in when you’re scattered across three continents. I didn’t even know that I had that complicated of an ancestry until I was in fourth grade.

Do you remember a while back when that thing called “Coronavirus” forced us all to hide in our homes for several months? Well, being in fourth grade at the time (not very busy), I ended up having a lot of free time. For the first month of quarantine, I spent most of that free time playing video games on my iPad, like most kids my age. 

But the way I spent my free time would see a dramatic change sometime in April.  I remember the moment very vividly. I had just finished a math worksheet my dad had been pressing me to do for a week. (I didn’t enjoy math). After reviewing it and fixing my errors (There were many), my dad finally allowed me to get my iPad and play with Ava until dinner. We used to keep our iPad in my parent’s room because Ava and I often would sneak in and try to steal the iPad when no one was looking, so that’s where I headed.

My parents’ room was very messy that day.  It was very spacious, and near the bed was a bookshelf where the iPad was.  It had gotten a little messy over the years… okay, very messy, and after a while, my mom just couldn’t stand having her kids steal books and just throw them around randomly on the bookshelf.  She took it upon herself to reorganize it and had taken all the books out to clean up the bookshelf. 

The condition of the bookshelf was even worse than we thought it was.  When we took it out, we ended up finding a whole stack of Jason’s homework assignments, a bunch of drawings that Ava did when she was younger, and some old piano sheets that my parents used to play.  It was a nightmare to get all of it out, and when we did, not one of us kids wanted to throw a single thing in the trash.  I wanted to keep the failed homework assignments Jason had so I could tease him about it.  Ava didn’t want anyone touching her drawings even though she filled up ten binders to the brim with a bunch of other drawings.  So for the past couple of days, our mom had been keeping all of the stuff out to give us time to decide what we wanted to throw away.

The somewhat organized pile of books and whatnot had turned into a hopeless mess by now because Ava and I kept knocking it over, and I kid you not… I had to calculate every step of the way in order not to step on any books. 

But something caught my eye at that point. A photo book, and on the cover, a black-and-white image of a man who looked to be in his 30s.  In the background was a city that looked oddly familiar with the architecture and language.  For some reason, I was able to translate the language on the signs in the city, which were everywhere.  For whatever reason, the man who smiled at the camera looked oddly familiar…

And then it hit me! It was Grandpa Malcolm!  This picture was of him when he fought during the Vietnam War!  The city he was in was probably Saigon— I’d been there before when I was little.  I sat down to examine the book further, opening it up to see what else I could find.  I don’t remember all the pictures in the book, but I remember seeing loads of pictures of him with his friends.  I was shaking as I turned every page, my mind filled with speculation of what I’d see my grandpa doing next.  Most of the time he was in the city of Saigon, but I saw him in the rice fields as well, and I also got to see multiple pictures of him having a beer with his fellow soldiers.

“That’s Grandpa Malcolm,” I heard my dad’s voice from behind me. I had been so wrapped in the book I didn’t hear him enter the room. “Do you know what he is doing in this picture?”

“He’s fighting the war, right?” I said. 

My father nodded and sat down next to me.  He picked up another book titled: mẹ, năm 1955 (Mom, year 1955). That meant this book was about pictures of my mom in 1950…

“But mom wasn’t alive in 1950.”  I blurted out suddenly as my father opened up the pages. Inside were black-and-white images of a young girl who looked about Jason’s age, maybe a bit older than he was. I recognized the images were taken in what I think was Saigon as well.

“Not your mom,” My dad laughed. “My mom.” I sat there and looked in the book with him as he stared into the pictures. After a while, my eyes started to wander around the pile of books to see what other interesting things I could find. It didn’t take long for me to find another book titled in Spanish this time, labeled: Carlos y Juan, hijo y padre (Carlos and Juan, Son and Father) The first thing I noticed was that I could smell its stench from here, and then I realized it was the oldest-looking book out of the three. 

“Who is Carlos?” I asked.

“Grandpa on your mom’s side,” My dad replied. “That book shows pictures of them… around the time when they lived in Spain.” The pictures did look old for sure, although I wasn’t entirely sure where in Spain it was.

I remembered instantly who Carlos was. I’d met him a couple of times.  I still didn’t know who Juan was, but I guessed that Juan was either Carlos’s father or his son. They had lived in Spain… I didn’t know that before. And before I knew it, my mind was filled with questions. When did Carlos live in Spain? Why did he leave Spain? I wanted to know everything. Questions were suddenly flying out of my mouth, and they were coming out too quickly for my father to process them all. I wanted to hear about my dad’s life story.

“Carlos lived in Spain? He’s Spanish? So I’m part Spanish? So does that mean I have Spanish Roots on mom’s side?!” 

“You aren’t Spanish, but you have plenty of other ethnicities,” My dad answered.

That’s true. We never listened. But now that I knew all these things about my family, I wanted to know more, and I would have listened for hours to hear more about it.  I wanted to hear every single detail about where I was from. All these stories lead right up to me, right?  It was Grandpa Carlos’s life that affected the life of my mom, and then my life! I wanted to know why I had so many ethnicities.  I heard I was also Japanese— I’d never been to Japan before and as far as I knew I didn’t have any relatives there.  I started quickly asking questions about that. When I was younger my parents always wanted me to learn these different languages— first I had to learn Korean, then Vietnamese, then Japanese, and Spanish. I didn’t understand why I needed to learn it at the time— I kept complaining that I’d never need this in the real world, and refused to pay attention most of the time.  Now I knew why they were so insistent on me learning.

Eventually, Ava ran into the room. “Mary!” She said with her hands on her hips. “Are we going to play or not?”

“Right!” I said, running to get my iPad.  Before I knew it, I was on the couch, my iPad in my lap, playing with Ava again.  But even as I was focusing on the game, the moment still lingered on in my head.  I had all these roots that I never knew about. 

My Grandpa Malcolm fighting in the Vietnam War… Grandpa Carlos immigrated from Spain to Seoul… and I was sure that there were more stories, waiting to be discovered. These were the roots that put Mary Anderson in the position she lives in today.  It was like a blooming flower.  I was the flower, the highlight that offers the decoration in a garden.  But a flower can’t survive without roots, and those roots are the reason why a flower can survive.  There are reasons why I’m so diverse, and they’re hidden in my roots.  I wanted to study those roots. I wanted to explore them.

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