Discovering My Mother’s English Language Workbook from the ’90s Titled Hooray for English!
BY SUSAN NGUYEN
On the cover a monkey steers
a rocket ship. Inside a blonde
astronaut smiles, waved into space
by an Asian family who I imagine
lassoing the curve of the moon,
the hard c of constellation.
I watch my mother’s path
between past and future tense,
waiting for her handwriting
to soar. To arrive fully formed
and fluent. Outside these pages,
I struggled through years
of basic Vietnamese. My parents
threatened me with language
classes but I was never worried–
the Viet church far, their work hours
long. Those two springs my father
drove me to CCD, he stayed
in the car while I faked prayers
and made the sign of the cross.
He read the papers with arms
stretched wide trying to catch
all the words: seat fully reclined,
newsprint lettering his dreams.
After mass I tapped his window
gently, afraid to pull him back
into this world. The sky poured
forth the alphabet. We spelled
our futures on the fogged
windshield. Inside on a dark
shelf, a different life quivered
in my mother’s throat.
(excerpts from) Hooray for English!
BY SUSAN NGUYEN
after my mother’s 1990s English language workbook of the same name
