Collision
It’s been awhile since my last post so here I go again.
Just after a few weeks into summer, I’ve realized that I live in two different worlds. I have my Hmong/church world and my school/college world. And the one thing that is probably one the of the most difficult things to do is collide both worlds. Why do you ask? Let me try to explain.
I’ve grown up in my church, an all-Hmong church. I’ve known most of the families there right now all my life. Whenever the weekends came around, I always hung out with my 3 brothers and 1 sister and the more poorer Hmong families of the church (just cause my family was pretty poor itself). So basically it was just about at least 15 guys and 1 girl whenever we hung out. We always played games together, laughed together, did basically almost everything together except school, particularily in my case cause I nor my siblings went to school with any of the Hmong kids. Thus, I was a very shy kid at school. Some people find it hard to believe but it’s true! I was probably considered a loner back in the days at school. Rarely talked, kept to myself, only talked when needed to. Of course I had my circle of friends, but what did they really know about me other than I was “cool”? I never did anything for school. No afterschool activities/clubs or sports. I never hung out with school kids cause I couldn’t really, no car or rides or cell phone, so I just stayed home a lot. I even had days where I tried to count how many words I could say throughout the entire schoolday. Now I think that’s pretty crazy huh. Anyways, as you can already tell, that was my school life during my junior and high school years. BUT during all those times, the one thing I looked forward to every week was church, where I felt most comfortable with the Hmong environment. All my friends were there, people I know and grown up with. At church, I was myself, I didn’t have to put up a mask like I do at school. Not to mention that the Hmong community expands WAY beyond the borders of Illinois. That’s why there’s almost no UIC people who know who Hmong people are, cause Illinois barely has any of them. If you go to Wisconsin and Minnesota, Hmong people are everywhere, believe me. And if I ever met a Hmong person ANYWHERE in the United States, there’s a good chance that we could be related. That’s just crazy. ANY HMONG PERSON! and I can be related to that person. That’s how crazy the Hmong world is. We’re all connected one way or another, especially in the Hmong Christian community because about only less than 10% of Hmong-Americans are Christian and there are well over 250,000 Hmong in the US. So I know people from California, Oregon, Alaska, Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennyslvania, Rhode Island, New York, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado, and probably have relatives in the rest of the United States.
Now, here’s where the whole collision part comes in. Now that I’ve entered college at UIC, the people there have become almost like family, especially the AAIV family. When I first entered AAIV, I was a pretty quiet guy. I did my typical school personality which was be quiet, don’t talk much, say what’s needed to be said and you’ll do fine. But I soon learned that I can’t do that anymore. No more “nice guy” mask that I use in school, no more doing the least amount necessary to get by, and especially no more counting how many words I can say in a school day. I soon realized that I had to be more myself around these people. I’m not gonna lie, it was hard, especially cause none of the AAIV people were Hmong except Kong, my cousin. But I soon came to learn and understand more of the dominant Korean and Chinese cultures in AA. And sooner or later, I found myself acting more “natural” around them. All the events helped. Fall Retreat, Winterfest, CUP, Spring Celebration, CFW, and other smaller things like large group, small group, prayer meetings, and many more. The list goes on and on. All of this soon became my life during the school year. Academics and AAIV was my school year, not just my Hmong life.
Now because of college, I feel like I live in two completely different worlds. I have my life at UIC which primarily revolves around AAIV and I have my Hmong life. In all honesty, last summer I tried avoiding bringing the two worlds together. I never invited my Hmong friends to any of the AAIV gatherings nor did I ever invite school friends to my Hmong/church gatherings. It just felt TOO awkward for me. I know it sounds selfish of me saying all of this, but this has never happened to me. Like I said before, my school life and Hmong/church life never collided in the past. I was always living in one world or the other. But now that it’s summer time, there’s a ton more chances to have both worlds come together. And it has already happened, a few times actually. There were times where some AAIV people came to my house and met my family. Now that was super weird for me to experience. It just felt weird. Never in my life have both worlds collided like how this summer has been so far. NO ONE met my entire family including all 4 siblings, parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, and/or church friends until this summer. If it were me, I would’ve been overwhelmed like crazy. But because it was me who’s colliding both worlds together, it just felt weird.
I really don’t know where I’m going with this but the whole collision business means a lot to me right now. I have two lives, two families, but how can I collide both worlds? How can I be Tony Yang in this world and Tony Yang in the other? In all honesty, I’m more myself in my life at home but what about school? Of course I act myself a lot of times but am I REALLY myself? Beleive me when I say this but ALOT of people at school don’t know how I act around my brothers. I’m sure many people would find it rather surprising. This is just another thing that’s hard for me to deal with, acting myself in both lives.
Sigh, I’m just going to end it here cause I don’t know where I’m going now ahah. Let’s just say one final thing: it’ll be hard for me if I ever dated someone who isn’t Hmong.
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