Mangos or Mangoes

Man-go. Man-gos. Man-goes.

Mango. Mangos. Mangoes.

The first English word I had to say,

because my English was not proper enough.

Because my ‘Hmonglish’ slang was too strong

and they seem to misunderstand the words uttered from my lips.

Yet they seem to be ‘experts’ on my ancestor’s dialects,

as if I was the stranger

who did not understand.

Teaching me as if I was never taught

because my people did not have a voice.

Teaching me that my people were savages,

because they have no land to call home but the forest.

Yet these ‘savages’ they labeled,

were wise to hide the stories.

Stories of the war, bloodshed, and suffering

embedded deep in the threads and fabrics.

Now, who’s the stranger

who does not understand?

Stories full of heart-tugging losses,

of survivors call the Hmong people,

of a war fought in secret, full of deaths,

of the ruthless rapes of the women,

of the heartless kidnaps of the children,

and of the cold-blooded murders of my people’s men,

and the greatest of all, of them who left the Hmongs.

My people, forced to stay as unknown allies even after the war.

Seriously,

the fucking mangoes started it.