Calling

“Ntxawm.”

The harsh monosyllabic sound startles you. It’s midsemester, and you still hesitate to answer when your professor says it—though you are the one who asked him to use this name. It should be normal in this setting: in this Hmong language class, full of other Hmong students, your name is the most ordinary one—but it is the first time anyone knows you as this.

It is your turn to read out loud to your classmates, so you scramble to find the section in the textbook, the two-column paragraphs outlining how to greet visitors into your home.

Welcome their presence with their title—grandfather, aunt, uncle—and their name. Tell them to come in and sit. Give water. Never ask if they want water because they will refuse. You must insist for them to rest. It is your honor to host. Once they are settled, inquire about their health by asking if they are eating well, doing well. This is how you recognize their humanity and connection to you. This is how you call them.

Do not respond when your brother says he hates being Hmong.

Drive him to the local gym like he wants. Don’t pay attention to his lightning temper. Don’t chase the issue and close him in a corner—like you’ve done before. This time, drive carefully.

The roads are less packed on this gloomy Sunday afternoon. Turn up the volume of the pop station. Sing along. Pretend you are not watching him from the corner of your eye and don’t see how he quickly taps out a Facebook message to one of his friends, someone who hears his personal thoughts, someone saving him at this very moment. Saves you from talking.

When you park, remind him to call you after he’s done. If he points out that it’s raining—like it has been all day—don’t say that he’s stupid for not bringing a jacket. This is how he is, awaiting your reaction, so you must not react. You must be calculating. Remember how he stormed out of the house with rigid shoulders, downcast eyes, lips curled. He is a loose thing.

Be the adult because you are. You are twenty-four and he is fifteen, so you need to be the sister who understands. You know he can be like this only with you.

Give him your jacket without argument as a gesture of goodwill. As compromise. He takes it wordlessly, and you watch his lanky figure tiptoe its way across the street into the brick building with large uppercase letters. The wide reflective windows obscure your sight of him.

On the way home, change the FM radio to listen to Hmong songs instead. “Caub Fab” plays, so sing along as you always do to the poetic lines detailing the tragedy of the Hmong during the Secret War and the travesty of being ignored by the world. Scream the words about how Hmong are forced to fight an impossible war and survive in dense jungles and mountainous terrain, hiding in caves and feeding on plants and roots. They are the guerilla fighters still trapped in the Laotian forests, the “Caub Fab.”

The male voice sings: “Cas yuav yug txhaum los ua hmoob, yuav tsis zoo xws li luag.”

Oh, how I am punished to be born as Hmong, so I am not equal to others.

Consider this line, how it resembles an affliction, a devastating life sentence.

The leader General Vang Pao once said that as a young boy, he thought about how he could help our Hmong be relieved of our “debts.” That’s the correct term, you think, but you’re not sure. You don’t know enough Hmong words and idioms. He uses the words “debts” or “punishments” as if there were an innate sense that the Hmong are paying for something they have done. A grand and great curse. An epic tragedy.

Epics, you’ve learned, are long poems about the origins of a community or crucial historical events. They dramatize adversity, conflict, and triumph—and isn’t that the core of Hmong? When epics detail the movement of the heroes from one place to another, like Aeneas moving his people to Italy to start Rome, haven’t the Hmong been doing this for a millennium? From the Yellow River in central China to southern provinces, they have been uprooted from their original lands and had their histories destroyed, written language burned to ashes, tongues cleaved into another one. As the Pandavas and Kauravas found out in their war with over a billion deaths, reclaiming home is costly, and the Hmong will learn this lesson as they disperse throughout the world. They will seek to be accepted and free, searching for a safe place. Their fate has not yet concluded. The ending has not arrived, and they continue to witness their collapse.

Your brother’s words stay with you.

Earlier, he threw them at you in a fit of rage. You stared at him calmly and told him to keep his voice down. Why must he be so ill-mannered? Your maternal grandparents have arrived, and your shaman grandfather will be performing a ritual for the family to call in the new year, to call the ancestors for blessings. Your brother seemed fine until he walked into your bedroom and muttered how he hated everything: the elders, the duties, everything Hmong. It startled you. How could he summon such negative words? It worried you because you knew the expectations of him as the oldest son. You longed for a brother who would understand that lonely path.

The next time your brother says he hates Hmong, consider making a banner titled “Things to Always Remember” and pinning it to his bedroom wall next to a world map with color-coded highlights of eras, movements, and total populations. The banner would say:

1. Hmong means “free.”
2. Hmong have always fought for their independence and right to live.
3. The very existence of Hmong is a testament to our survival and persistence. For goodness’ sake, what don’t you understand about that? Why are you so ashamed to be Hmong???
4. OUR EXISTENCE IS AN EPIC IN THE MAKING.

Don’t tell him you know Hmong doesn’t really mean “free.” Dr. Yang Dao, the first Hmong man to obtain a PhD in France, in 1972, interpreted the term as “Free Man” in his doctoral dissertation. Its apt resonance made it a well-received sentiment in the community, and it is what you were told all your life. Hmong means “free” because it must.

When you ask a shaman, he says Hmong means “luck” or “fortune” because of its homophone: Hmong is similar to Hmoov.

In China, they say “Miao.” As “young shoots,” you are wild and uncultured like weeds to be destroyed. You tell your existence as an epic because it is more compelling that way.

There is no unanimous agreement and no historical records to sift through to seek the word’s origins, so you have taken up the belief that you are free and lucky—free as in, always seeking freedom; lucky as in, just lucky to be alive. The weight of heritage is heavy and costly. It will always have you running.

Your brother tells you he hates Hmong, often whimsically, usually seriously. He says that Hmong doesn’t have enough words. He is referring to how he doesn’t know how to explain scientific processes and terms in our language, something he deems critically important since science is his favorite subject in high school. On Netflix, he’ll watch documentaries about earth, animals, and insects. He’ll watch YouTube videos about the top ten dangerous mammals or top ten interesting facts about a specific species. Sometimes, when he puts a video on, Grandmother sits with him in the living room to rest from a long afternoon in the garden or just to relieve her aching legs. She will ask questions. He will answer to the best of his ability. They continue this tenuous routine until he is tired of trying. The elevation in his tone will be enough indication for her to stop.

You hold back your sigh. Tell him that Hmong does have words, but he just doesn’t know them. He is a teenager who doesn’t know anything. He looks up to you, so he will believe whatever you say. That is why you don’t confess you don’t know the words for science either. It’s why, in the far future, you will take a Hmong language class and be the oldest student, the only graduate student in a class designed for undergraduate students. You must learn so that you can teach him. Learn so that he will understand who he is.

If a newborn child doesn’t like their name—evident through their constant crying—a shaman will select a more fitting name. When a bad spirit haunts a person, a shaman performs a name-changing ceremony, bestowing a new name to veil the person. And if a soul is lost, a shaman performs the ceremony to remind the soul who their family is and guide them home.

You know how important names are, but the truth is you don’t recognize Ntxawm as yours. Your mother gave this name to you because you asked for it, because you were supposed to be her last daughter. Ntxawm is synonymous with the youngest daughter, and you no longer held that title when your sister was born five years later.

When you were born, your mother named you with a word meant as a prayer and invocation for a son next time. It is the true name—recognized by grandparents and relatives—used to welcome you.

It is the one you hate. The homophones have vulgar or gross meanings. It’s unpoetic. You turn to Ntxawm because at least it is feminine and often used as the name of a protagonist—like in many Hmong myths; like the Hmong epic you created for a class writing assignment. Your main character is Ntxawm who is brave and clever, outsmarting her evil male cousins, rescuing her sisters from danger, moving her parents to a safer and more prosperous home. She, the youngest daughter, leads her family and clan. People write about her and tell her stories. She becomes a legend.

You find him in your room, collapsed on the floor, sobbing after a heated argument with a sister. You are always here, in between siblings, the mediator, considering how to console him.

You call his name, but he does not hear you. He is already lost, has been for so long. Years ago, when you drove him to the barren bridge behind your neighborhood, the one rumored to be haunted, you kept driving on the dirt back road with deep ditches and didn’t think about the wheels screeching, the brakes exhausting as you turned with a swipe of your palm. He sat in the passenger seat, sniffling, and stared out his window. The car lurched over the hill, struggling to unwedge from the gravel. You cried the entire time. You tried to instill in him the knowledge that words are powerful and words can destroy. You demand that he speak better—to stop invoking.

You watch him on your beige carpet, frozen, exhausted from this cycle of tears. He is sobbing, and why must this burden be yours? Why must he take after you?

He tells you that he wants to be a different ethnicity. He wants to be Korean.

Look at him for a long moment. Don’t strike him down right away. Remember: he takes everything you say to heart. Never forget that. Instead, tell him that he can be Korean. His nationality can change. He can have dual citizenship or even renounce American citizenship to be solely a Korean citizen. Is this what he wants?

He doesn’t answer you, mulling over this new information, but you know. Of course, you do.

You were thirteen when your sisters dropped you off at an audition to be a Korean pop star. You were the first in line in your group of ten. The interviewers sat at a table with a camera on a tripod. You sang Mandy Moore’s “Only Hope” and fumbled the lines. When they asked for demonstrations of dance skills, two girls stepped out and began dancing as if they were at a nightclub. You stared at them and then became embarrassed. You understood too late that they didn’t have the skills and neither did you. After the audition, when your sisters ask you what happened, you told them the truth. Told them you were stupid. With no formal or informal lessons, you deluded yourself into believing you could be an idol. That’s how desperate you were to get away from Hmong. That’s how much you wanted to be something else that seemed easier than Hmong.

Your brother wants to shed the skin of a firstborn Hmong son. The first-born son takes care of his aging parents. He represents his family in the clan. He should know the etiquette of greeting his relatives and how to perform his duty as a male member of the clan. He needs to learn proper words to be respectful and to be respected.

Your brother hates it. He hates how he doesn’t know anything and is expected to uphold everything. And you, more than anyone, understand.

This is a dream you have about him. A river, the same one that almost drowned you years ago as a teenager. A troubling overcast. He is in the waters by himself. Your other family members are nowhere to be seen, but you keep hearing their voices. He says something. You hear nothing. The current picks up, suddenly flooding higher and higher. His arm becomes frantic, his face more panicked, but you are frozen. You never learned how to swim. The river is surging now and the sky is completely dark. On the other side of the river, you see men in uniforms. They are coming. You can’t save him. He disappears underneath.

You wake up in tears, the dread in your chest heavy, as it always is when you dream about family dying. The grief is so visceral, following you into the human world.

He is on the floor, unraveling like earthquakes, and the last time he was like this, it was you who put him there. Remember his growing destruction of the house and family? Your parents said he would grow out of it. Your doting parents wanted to be oblivious to their first son’s temper, so your sisters endured the worst of his violent, sensitive nature.

But you grew weary of his erratic behavior, and one day he took offense at an irrelevant comment you said. He roared in your face and turned away, but that time you heard a deafening ringing. Something snapped.

You chased after him. Told him if he wanted to be this kind of man, he should hit you right now. He screeched in frustration, screamed for you to leave, but you told him to do it. Let him hit you so he could see what a monster he was.

When he refused, you grabbed him. Pulled his arms behind his back. Tried to shove his legs down to the floor, force him to kneel. He wailed and resisted you with terrifying strength. He was only thirteen but already as tall as you. He looked scrawny, but you could not bend him.

You are not Ntxawm. You are no savior, nor is your brother a monster. He is a boy in need, and you do not know how to handle this. You are not the man he needs. Your father is not always around. He has no older brother to teach him. He has no older male cousins to show him the proper path. He only has sisters, and you are the one he looks up to. You are the smart and outspoken one; you are the one he needs to teach him how to speak.

Would no one suffer if you had been born a boy like your mother had hoped? Up until your birth, she believed you would be a son, the first after five daughters, and then you would’ve grown up with all your cousins, and your father would’ve relied on you, and you would know definitively what it means to be Hmong—but Hmong is an epic in the making, so that is not the case, and it is not your role.

You want to ask if your brother remembers that night you fought with your father, how a nonchalant comment about wishing your father would wash his own dishes escalated into a confrontation about gender roles, revealing the bitter reality that he was still a patriarchal man with misogynistic views and expected you, a daughter and woman, to wash them. The respect you had for him dissipated as he laughed in your face, your sister dragging you out of the house while other sisters held back your father before you both exploded and did something you might regret. You snarled on your way outside, trembling with anger, but then once you were far enough from the house, you sat on the sidewalk and cried for a long time. When you returned, your father was gone, and your brother had witnessed it all. He was only eleven and sobbing. You could only utter words asking him to be a good Hmong man. You thought you were doing a good job of guiding him.

But then your mother and sister gripped your arms and screamed for you to let go, your brother’s frightened cries reaching your ears as your fingers loosened. You were shoved to another room as your mother cradled her precious son. Your muscles hurt, tingling from exhaustion, and you realized what you had done. You are no better than your father. Perhaps you are the monster.

For years, you hated your names—all those expectations and intentions could not find any shelter in your skin. You wanted to escape. But in a college classroom, you learn your people’s history for the first time instead of just oral tales from elders. From Hmong professors, you understand the timeline of the diaspora and learn of your deep grievances. You feel the ancestors when you drown in community pools, in rushing rivers, in clear lakes, but you find that you are also more than just suffering. If you could learn to embody the meaning of your birth Hmong name—the one recognized by your elders, the true one that resonates in your heart—you might see how you can learn to love who you are without destroying yourself. See how you—a woman, a daughter, a sister—are capable too.

You came back and kneeled in front of his sobbing form after your mother let him go. His face was red as if you had hit him. His face flooded with tears, his arms holding onto the couch like it was a raft, unwilling to look at you.

You cried with him, saying, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

He wailed, unresponsive, perhaps unwilling to hear you.

You wanted to hold him but knew it was too soon, too late.

I’m so sorry.

You did not confess your fears about him becoming an adult. You feared he would never be ready. You feared he would lose himself. Instead, you told him your wish. Please, just be a good person.

Now, he is sixteen, only two years from adulthood. He has retreated to your bedroom, lying on the carpet, crying.

You never know what to do, but this time, your hands must not be afraid.

Reach for his shaking hands, his tear-smeared face. Tell him to breathe. Deep breaths. In and out, in and out. He will pull against you—how typical, perhaps he is not lost yet—and he will cry endlessly. This is the curse we hold: a heavy heart seeking our place in this world.

Recall his birth, hear his screams. A sister tells you in secret that because Mother once considered having an abortion, his spirit did not want to be born unwanted into this human world. After birth, he cried constantly and was a delicate child. A shaman changed his name to uplift his spirit, but he was afflicted.

Yet you remember how no one else could make him laugh as a months-old baby, your silly expressions making him giggle, how he listened to you—how you lay next to him while he slept, just a newborn baby, and you placed your index finger into his tiny curled fist.

How you blessed him to have a fortunate life.

How you loved him.

Call him. Call his name and tell him to return.

Read more from Issue 20.1.