Poetry by Minh Thư Nguyễn

Edited by Summer Folger

When you’re bad at math, walking along the street of All American Way is number one on the pop quiz. My unit is at the corner of 13th Street, Tammy is in a unit at the opposite end of 19th Street. Take your standard minute ruler, lay it on our city, and determine our walking distance. What is the measurement between the two of us? 

+ Begin at Windsor and Stratford Place with gated affordable 

housing all smushed together into neat bricks,

+ add the West Justice Center Parking where my dad held on for dear life 

to teach me the gas and brake pedals after work, 

+ add the Westminster Public Library where the desk 

near the giant window was taken by me for the entire day, 

– subtract the Westminster Police Department that took two hours 

to send someone when my unit burned down, 

+ add the Freedom Memorial Park where an eternal flame 

persevere in front of Vietnamese and American men, 

+ add the Rose Performing Arts Theater where I took my brother

to see evening Christmas musicals for all his birthdays, 

+ add the Coastline Community College where my dad studied hard

day and night to become a licensed pharmacy technician, 

+ and add Liberty Park where Tammy and I 

sat under the summer shades to waste away our youth. 

What is the measurement of citizenship? What is the distance between Tammy and I, both children who grew up in this graph city? 

=  Twelve minute walks are zero when we stand side by side.

Tammy, first generation and I, an immigrant.

My life in lines, segments of places making

a world called home. Connect the two of us,

label the line All American Way. 

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Artist Statement: Westminster City sounds like a British place, but it’s a southern California city. I was surprised to learn the city was over 200 years old, founded only shortly after railroads from the east met the ocean. Even in those early days, immigrants from China, Japan, and Mexico were settling here. I am an immigrant, grew up in actual Sài Gòn and now living here, Westminster City nicknamed Little Sài Gòn. I believe I am part of the third or fourth wave of Vietnamese immigration; my uncle was part of the first wave after the fall of Sài Gòn and sponsored my family. 

Long history now condensed, this poem is about a very specific childhood area of Westminster City: the 12 minute walk between my family’s apartment and my best friend’s apartment. Between school days, I often walked down a street literally named All American Way to visit Tammy. I was not a citizen then, and yet for that brief moment in time, I grew from a child to an adult at the very heart of the city. Every unit in this poem was an actual location in order on this street, a place that sculpts me. Back then, how would I have known anything about long histories or whether I belong? 

I welcome you into Westminster City, problem number one on the quiz.