I.

In 2018, I moved to the city of Buenos Aires on a fellowship to conduct field research. Early in the apartment hunting process, I came across a listing for a room with cathedral-esque stained glass windows. Upon visiting, I stepped into an entryway lined with black and white tile that solidified a sense of whimsy, rather than piety. The apartment had simple white-washed walls and a staircase that spiraled through the center of the home. As I stepped onto the rooftop for the first time, I found a drafty patio sparsely furnished with a sun-faded hammock, a wrought-iron table for two, and empty laundry lines that danced in the wind. On second glance, I noticed a single pomegranate tree sitting by the ledge, perhaps forgotten or abandoned by a previous tenant.

I signed the lease and soon after was swept into the wave of to-do’s that come with fieldwork— unpacking, interviewing, and navigating a new public transit system. In the months that followed, I spent countless hours on that patio editing field notes at the table. When I could not make sense of the data, or felt homesick, I curled into the hammock to watch the rosy cotton candy clouds as they wafted around.

Many months passed before I remembered the lonesome pomegranate tree. As I approached the plant, I noticed a single splintered fruit. I carefully snipped the bulbous gem and marched down to the kitchen with great anticipation of the delightful pucker and glee that pomegranates bring. I sat on an uncomfortable wooden stool with a bowl of cool tap water and patiently began to pull back the leathery skin and papery membranes to reveal the ruby jewels within. I tapped the fruit to extract the kernels, but lacking patience, the kernels burst. I looked down and noticed the crimson swirls, a reminder that pomegranates require tenderness.

II.

In 1858, France colonized the territory that constitutes modern day Vietnam under the guise of civilizing natives. This thin veneer failed to hide the systematic siphoning of resources to the French mainland. In addition to desires for cash crops like rice and rubber, Vietnam also sustained significant production of opium.

Opium, initially commercialized by the British in India and China, quickly made its way to Vietnam. French soldiers, isolated from their wives and in need of an outlet from the stress of their military service, found relief in opium dens staffed by Vietnamese mistresses, multiracial métis/sses, and androgynous houseboys. Journals from the French military doctors and ministers posted to Vietnam cited many reasons for why male-on-male sex was proliferating. Some Frenchman cited the ugliness of local Vietnamese women while others allegedly were mistaken due to the androgyny of the Vietnamese boys. Other soldiers noted that being in an exotic place allowed them to experiment with sexual fetishes that were not possible at home, or simply that sodomy was pleasurable under the influence of opium.

French military officers and religious figures demonized the male-on-male sexual behavior, unable to accept what transpired under their own leadership. To be caught with another male was pédéraste, colloquially shortened to pédé. This word made its way into Vietnamese vernacular, and as there is no hard ‘p’ sound in Vietnamese, pédé became the mangled bê đê— a catch-all for sissy boy, same-same, queer, faggot, gay. The first time my dad warned me that if I kept cooking by mom’s side that I would become bê đê, I felt like I was at knifepoint. I often responded, “No...no...no...no....” either to drown him out, or to convince myself I had a choice to be anything other than bê đê.

III.

I learned Vietnamese history hoping it would help me understand where my dad learned the words he used to cut me down. I asked him about his own experiences as a refugee to, at least, contextualize his 1950s vantage point and, at best, help me to start forgiving him. After seven years of living on my own and processing the childhood experiences that haunt me, I gathered the conviction to tell him how deep his words had cut me. He responded, “Thương cho roi cho vọt, ghét cho ngọt cho bùi.” To love means to crack the whip, to hate means to smother with sweetness. It did not matter how he learned the colonial pejorative. It did not matter that his homophobia and misogyny had led me to self-harm. Home is where words hold me at knifepoint, and my dad tells me that violence is the fruit of love.

I have trouble recalling many sweet memories of my dad, but find solace when I come back to the image of him at the dining table at dawn. At any given moment in my childhood, I could open the refrigerator to find individually portioned tupperware of freshly prepared fruit. What possesses him to wake up at dawn when even early desert light has not crept through the kitchen window and all is still quiet, save for the gentle thud thud as he taps on a pomegranate to collect the seeds? The old adage goes that “Distance makes the heart grow fonder.” Thousands of miles from home, the pomegranate tree that bore a single fruit reminded me that while my dad cuts deep with words, his sense of care is embodied in acts of service. In the past, I understood our relationship as simply love or abjection. Plucking a pomegranate carapace clean for myself helped me to see grace in this everyday act. My dad may not show tenderness towards me in his misguided warnings, but when he picks those scarlet beads in the early morning, I am reminded of his waxing capacity for love.

About the Author

Nathaniel (he/they) is a queer writer and the only child of Vietnamese immigrants who was raised in Little Saigon, California. They graduated from Tufts University and were the recipient of a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship to Argentina. Their work has been published in The Tufts Observer, Voces Voci Voix Vozes, and The Good Men Project. Currently, they are pursuing a PhD at Vanderbilt University and can be reached via Twitter @nathanielmtran.