Pop

I am reclaiming my heritage. By this, I do not mean the obvious. I already embrace my Vietnamese-ness, my New York-ness, my femaleness. I am reclaiming pop. That's right: POP.

When I got to college I used to "pop" this and "pop" that, and people looked at me like I had three heads. Finally, after a short time, I realized that while I said "pop" to mean soda pop, everyone here said, "soda." Boring. So, I assimilated, and bitterly so, because these picky people who "soda-ed" left and right were the same folks who said ARM like aahm and ASIA like ayeszure.

This past weekend visiting with my family rejuvenated my interest in POP. It's part of my family's language. It connects me with them. It connects me with where I'm from, and to those whom I love who still live there.

So, pahk yeh cahh whehevah yah whahnt. I'm going to have POP whenever I want.