I remember Rocky Balboa beating up the Russian and everyone in the theater stood up and
cheered. I never felt so American before or since.
A girl from a steel town in PA got a scholarship to dance her heart out. What a feeling it was to
be alive in this part of the world.
My body was young, thin, razor-edged. It moved as quickly as my thoughts.
Back then, a slice of pepperoni pizza and a cold can of Cherry Coke was lunch and dinner. My
body was burning up and I was going nowhere.
How anything that felt important was so far away. Like Linda Hughes in English Lit. class. Like
getting a driver’s license.
Death was in the movies and thus entertaining. And happiness was the pop songs on the radio.
Racism was racism. It was the fabric of the American flag. I learned to bear it. Like a dead goat
following me around. Only I could see and smell the nasty little thing.
So it was growing up Cambodian in the 1980s. It was the only childhood I knew, and it was
mine, no matter what they said.
And the goat that followed me, that was also mine. And me cheering on Rambo for killing the
Viet Cong, who looked like my uncles and aunts, that was me too.
Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer and poet. He is the author of three full-length poetry collections. Koan Khmer is his debut novel. His writings have appeared in Copper Nickel, Massachusetts Review, New York Quarterly, The American Journal of Poetry, Diode Poetry Journal, among others. Tuon is poetry editor of Cultural Daily. He teaches at Union College, in Schenectady, NY.
Found Image: Oxford Valley Mall Postcard 3
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