sleepy dreams

In my sophomore year of high school, our social studies teacher taught us about the use of napalm during the Vietnam War. This was a part of Hmong American history that I was not aware of until that class.

I knew about the hundreds of detonators that were buried in the Plain of Jars in Laos. There were horror stories of villagers who would get blown up if they stepped on these detonators accidentally when traveling. Many of those jars became burial grounds for soldiers and civilians. To this day that area is still a wasted war zone filled with active detonators that have not been recovered.

I knew about the Hmongs who had to flee their villages and live in the forest in secrecy to run from the Laotian government because our people believe in freedom and sided with the Americans. I knew about the babies who were fed opium to hush their cries because any sound heard could mean life or death to a family. I knew about the crossing of the Mekong River to Thailand and how many people were shot down and drowned as they tried to escape from a war they did not start. I knew about the Hmongs who didn’t want to flee their villages only to be raided by soldiers where women were raped and killed, children were treated like animals and killed in inhumane ways, and men were tortured and killed and could not do anything because they did not have military weapons to fight back.

I didn’t know about the napalm.

During the Vietnam War, American soldiers filled their aircraft with napalm and dropped the liquid fire onto innocent villages in northern Vietnam, burning everything and anyone in sight. Napalm causes immediate third-degree burns the moment it touches your skin, causing blisters and disfigurement on contact. The fires destroyed acres of farmlands and plummeted people into starvation. The smoke from the burning forest caused respiratory problems and gave villagers bronchitis and pneumonia from the constant inhalant of the smoke. There are horror stories of villagers fearing for their lives when they hear the hums of an airplane flying over their homes because they did not know if there would be another unsolicited attack.

Former President Lyndon B. Johnson lied to America during his presidency and caused a war that the Americans could not fund and traumatized millions of American soldiers who were deployed to Vietnam to fight an enemy that did not exist. Many of these soldiers came back home to America with lifelong mental and physical trauma from knowing that they fought for a country that pushed political agendas and killed thousands of innocent people who had nothing to do with the war.

DJT is following this very thin line as he continues to spew nonsense to millions of ignorant Americans and divide the country apart while keeping the poor poorer as the rich gets richer. In this economy, the middle class does not exist anymore. If your household does not make close to half a mil, you are poor.

Please wake up and educate yourself on American history. There are flaws within the American government and there needs to be change. Stop lying to your citizens. Stop pushing agendas and stop favoring the top 1% who only hoard the wealth for themselves but do not use that wealth to make this country better. This country will only continue to crumble when leaders are not leaders and they only seek to benefit themselves. Be better and do better.

I’m not gonna go into how Hmong refugees and Hmong Americans are still being exploited and used as cheap labor in farming and manufacturing in the states in today’s time. That’s another story for another day but this is our history. It’s a part of American and Hmong history. When ignorant White Americans are oblivious to these facts and the history of what their people and their president did in the 1960s, it infuriates me because it shows that they do not want to own up to the destruction they caused.

WAKE 👏🏻 UP 👏🏻👏🏻.

This year’s theme is healing. The green dragon is transforming back to its earthly form and going back to sleep until another cycle. It’s shedding its armor and claws to slither on the ground again.

Healing is quiet. It’s not loud. It’s not in your face, it just is. Healing is dedication. Healing is consistency. Healing is being vulnerable. Healing is apologizing. Healing is accountability.

It’s gonna take some work. It’s gonna be a tough journey but that’s the beauty in it. No one just wakes up one day and is suddenly great and amazing. There’s work and failures behind closed doors that no one discuss. There’s beauty in healing.

I want to be better.

Because it’s not going to guarantee me a higher paying job. What it will guarantee is more stress and more student loan debt. I see the merit of going back to get more insider knowledge and expand my network, but real life experiences are just as important in the workforce when you know the right people. Also if I know me, I know that what I learn may not correlate with what I’m passionate about, therefore I may not be able to apply my knowledge to where I want to go. It might just end up being information that does not live rent free in my head.

Life is a wild ride. People can change their careers at any point of their life for whatever reason. No one is bound to do only one thing and being in the same role or industry their whole entire career, and for those who does so, good for you. Until I figure out my niche and finalize what I want to do for the rest of my life, I’m not taking out more loans. If I go back it’s because it was incentivized. If I take out a loan, it’s because I’m starting my own business or I’m buying a house. Until then, I don’t think it’ll be worth it for me to go back. The cons are outweighing more than the pros and it will not be a smart move.

And when my dad passed, I wanted to quit that hustle. I wanted to take a break. I wanted to just spend time with myself and my thoughts and grieve and reflect. And yet it’s difficult when there’s bills that needs to get paid. People are still asking me for favors even though I do not have the energy and I cannot give more of myself. I feel shitty about that. And then there’s past work places who are scrutinizing me and saying I’m not doing enough and firing me for whatever reason they feel fit. I deserve a break from the world. I deserve to just recollect myself and be okay with that.

I don’t know if I’m ever going to repay back my student loans, but my credit score is over 700. That’s all I know about me and my work ethic. I understand the importance of doing things and making my life feel worthy. And yet the depression in me sometimes whispers to just quit and leave. Quit everything and leave everything behind.

The anxiety doesn’t help. The ptsd doesn’t help. The depression can get really bad some days. I’m just not who I used to be and I’m trying to figure myself out again for the billionth time. It’s been a difficult readjustment. And those who haven’t gone through the lost of a parent will not know how difficult it is pretend to be okay while the world is still turning. I know I can’t put my life on hold forever but right now I just want peace and kindness and understanding. And it’s been so difficult to find people to work for who have the same view on life.

Gen Alphas will change the world with technological advances. They were raised by Millenials and Gen X. They will grow up to understand the complexity of the world with more depth and cynicism due to how accessible information is.

Gen Zers are copy and paste AI content producers with no real insights on the world. They think they’re better than all the generations but they don’t realize their mediocracy because they were not around before the internet.

Millenials are the OGs. They grew up in two eras and saw the internet came to existence and transformed the world. They are the most creative and original generation yet most depressed group. They were able turn the internet into profitable markets and yet struggle in today’s society due to the consequences of the Boomers.

Gen X are the smartest generation and they have the best work ethics. They carry the weight of society’s pressure on their shoulders but they don’t let that stop them from succeeding, and they do not bullshit. They were adults by the time the internet came along and they still remember a world without the internet with a much more level headed nostalgia unlike the Millenials.

During his presidency during The Pandemic of 2020, he perpetuated Asian hate. He made many ignorant Americans who’s never been exposed to different Asian Americans stereotyped all Asians as Chinese and being diseased. Many vulnerable and elderly Asian Americans got targeted and violently attacked on the streets due to this negativity. And that’s just wrong.

This hate is still lingering 4 years later. Young Americans, the Gen Z and Alpha generations, will have that same stereotype and ignorance in their minds due to the influence of social media and their own racist parent’s views.

For the first time in my 30 years of being alive, I experienced derogatory hate perpetuated upon me. Strangers on the streets, local cashiers, coworkers, and even bar and restaurant staffs treated me and my friends differently when we would go out. When I go shopping on my own or traveled by myself, many white Americans would purposely cough in front of me or think that I’m up to no good and follow me around.

I am Asian but I am not Chinese. I don’t speak Chinese and I don’t practice any Chinese holidays or ceremonies. My culture and heritage is completely different and I speak a completely differently language. But because I look like I’m Chinese and my surname is a common East Asian last name, I get stereotyped. It’s like someone thinking that a Finnish is the same as a Norwegian. They’re not the same people just because the people live in close proximity of one another.

I am Hmong. We are an indigenous native group of people who lived in the Southern parts of China and throughout Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand due to the diaspora. We have influences from all these countries because of the dispersement during wars and persecutions and we do not have a country because of the same reason. Oral tradition tells us that we had a monarchy and land of our own until the Chinese took over.

Our people are in America today because our men fought alongside with the Americans during the Vietnam War. Without us, there would’ve been more American deaths in the jungle. Without us, Americans would not have made it out of the jungles of South East Asia.

And here is DJT perpetuating racism and bigotry to Americans. And this is why I’m not voting for him. He can be a great businessmen but even businessmen can have distorted racist views because they’ve never been exposed to my people and diversity in general. Does America want that kind of person and negativity representing them?

Go read a book sometimes. Have a conversation with war veterans. Do a history check before spreading continuous ignorant hate. All Americans should have already learned about this and if your curriculum didn’t teach you this fact about American history then the education system have failed you.

Every year I cast a spell around this time for to those who harmed me in the past instead of giving me grace and giggle as the ghosts and trauma reappears in their life every fall.

Putting on the record that if anything is to happen to me, say a freak accident or if I go missing, please do not dismiss it. It was planned by someone else and not me. I met some crazy cracked out white people and now they're after me. I would never put myself in danger. I will always flee. Even if I go out on my own, I will always come back home and still have.

Regardless of how depressed I am, I do not have the courage to end my own life. I knew that about myself since I was a teen and I still can't do it and will not do it to this day. I am a thousand percent certain I never will.

It reminds me of the time when I started the job at the firm and the building next door was also set on fire. I guess I burn down every place and city I go to.