Space Channel 612: Journey on the Star Road (The Poetic Autobiography of a Second-Gen Asian-American)

A desire to understand our racial differences and cultural heritage leads Asian Americans, both second generation and adoptees, to travel to their parents’ homeland to seek out their affinities with their birth culture, or to try and find their biological parents. By immersing ourselves in the study of our families and our ancestors’ histories, we provide ourselves the ability to arrive at a crucial point of introspection that is essential for our understanding of self. Insight is not a quality that comes naturally. Rather, it is a skill that becomes well refined as we learn to appreciate the small miracles present in our lives. It is through that appreciation that I developed better insights into what being Asian-American means to me.

One might ask whether a poetic autobiography about growing up as a second generation Asian-American would just contain a bunch of random poems written by me. What follows by way of introduction are poems that reflect a mutual connection about what it means to be Asian-American. While I know that my poems emphasize the struggles of the Chinese and Vietnamese, they aspire to show a re-creation of the real-life experiences that us second generation kids have had growing up in America. I was born a decade and a half after the Vietnam War ended, and I once felt very disconnected from the whole experience. In fact, my uncle, Trung, escaped from Vietnam in 1978, at the age of twelve, and he is only fifty-one years old now. It’s amazing to think that he witnessed the atrocities of war at such a young age and had to escape to a country where he didn’t know the language.

Reading poetry about growing up as the second generation in a country teaches us important lessons about what it means to think about race. Every poet has a unique voice and by analyzing their word choices and poem structures we expose a beautiful kind of artifice that teaches us about the construction of our own social identities. This is particularly relevant in the case of Asian-American identity, because we were silenced about our oppressions throughout history, from the British Invasion of Hong Kong, to the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the atrocities committed during the War in Vietnam, and so on. This poetry collection is for every group of people that has been oppressed and has been forced to run away from their home land in search of a better life. This collection is for the uniqueness of our regional and cultural distinctions.

My greatest motivation for taking on the Space Channel 612 project was to learn more about my family’s history. Even though I am only one generation away from my family’s experience with the Vietnam War, I often felt disconnected from it on many levels. It was through hearing stories of what Vietnam was like, before and after the war, that I was able to slowly fill in the blanks. This project wouldn’t have been possible without the interviews I conducted with my uncles David, Minh, and Travis, and my mom, Chau. One of the main themes in this collection is searching through interstellar space to find a connection with my grandma, who I consider my lucky star. Since she passed away in 2001, I use memories of my childhood and the stories that my family has told me about her, in order to form that posthumous connection.

Thank you to everyone who has bought this collection of poetry! I put my heart and soul into this work, in hopes of one day becoming a pre-eminent figure for our generation of Asian-American poets. Your belief in me means the world and I would truly be nothing without your love and support! And for everyone who bought this collection on Day One, Happy Chinese New Year 2016!

Peace and Love,
Eric61Tu