To my young, “progressive” Vietnamese friends:

 

Via Niki Tran

Your parents, grand-parents and people of our generation escaped from bullets and prisons of Communist Vietnam, risked our lives at seas, and lived in these refugee camps for months and years on end, because we lived through socialism and know its reality. One MILLION lives were lost at seas in this process. 

 

Therefore, please stop lecturing us on progressivism and democratic socialism, after you have been brainwashed in schools. We have lived in stricken poverty, filty conditions, with rats and cockroaches infestation and diseases, just to be able to come to this great country; so, spare us your lecture on the poverty of inner city life. We have come to this country with nothing but the clothes on our back, with no money and little or no English skills, or knowldge of the trades, lived in 1/2-way houses in the inner cities; and so we worked as maids, garbage collectors, cashiers, waiting tables, Kmarts (your walmart’s predecessor) and any odd jobs to make a living and build our way up through hard work and savings.

 

Therefore, spare us your version about how disadvantaged minorities are in this country and “systemic oppression.” You have no idea what “true oppression” is like. We have been looked down upon, made fun of, and being called a chink/charlie, and most often times by blacks and hispanics; and yet, it never stopped us from working hard, in school and in life, to bring you up in safe, clean, privileged lives. So, please spare us your lectures on “systemic racism”, oppression, poverty, lacked of opportunities, disadvantaged, lacked of good education and schools, funding, welfare and support or a multitude of other excuses the left have brainwashed you to believe. The racist experience we endured are oftentimes from the people that you are seeking to protect. Understand that racism exists everywhere and in every culture! All you have to do is look back at your parents and grandparents, reflect, and know that they have endured all that you stated, and much much more; and yet, they still rise above and successfully moved on with their lives. Understand why most Vietnamese Americans are conservatives and fearful of socialist indoctrination, and the lies that they spew; and that’s because we lived it, experienced it, and suffered through it to give you what you now take for granted!

 

~~Steven Tuan Pham