the blueshift journal
blueshift / ˈblo͞oˌSHift / noun
the displacement of the spectrum to shorter wavelengths in the light coming from distant celestial objects moving toward the observer.
November 2016
Chrysanthemum Tran is an emerging queer and transfeminine Vietnamese American poet and teaching artist in Providence by way of Oklahoma City. In 2016, they became the first trans woman finalist of the Women of the World Poetry Slam. A three-time semifinalist at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, Chrysanthemum won “Best Poet” and “Best Poem” in 2016, and “Pushing the Art Forward” in 2015. A 2016 Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam champion and Pink Door Fellow, Chrysanthemum is a two-time member of the Providence national slam team and coaches the Providence youth slam team.
Find Tran's poem "An Acceptance" on our homepage, and their poems "Ode to Enclaves" and "Discovery" below.
Ode to Enclaves
My lineage is Little Saigon
asphalt, three generations
under one roof and mother-
land recipes. On Saturdays,
my family congregates
at our favorite restaurant:
Kim Phuong. Here, we worship
the hot pot; stuff our bellies
with blessings. My auntie says—
If we’re gonna suffer,
we gotta do it over good food.
The pavement’s cracked
but we know what to do. After
all, these are neighborhoods of necessity.
I remember
the first time I saw white faces
descend upon Little Saigon,
their crooked beaks eager to pick
meat off these streets. Squawking
about craft beers and raw
denim, their foreign tongues
butcher every name on the menu.
All their Yelp reviews sound the same—
“I discovered a real gem in Little Saigon.
So authentic! I give it 4 stars.
Would have been 5, but the waitress
could have smiled more.”
Now, Kim Phuong has a 30-minute wait,
plays Radiohead instead of Vietnamese ballads.
Waitresses speak enough English
to accommodate vegan diets.
Food bloggers all praise the tabernacle
of my childhood, beg to know
the magic of my people. In the 1800s,
riots ignited violence against Chinese
immigrants. After finding refuge
in each other, they kindled new homes:
Chinatowns. Asian American enclaves
have always been neighborhoods of necessity.
Before my people built this Little Saigon,
white flight to the suburbs sucked
this city’s economy down to its marrow.
But we know how to take leftovers
and forge a community. Funny
how this city would be boneyard
without us. Now white people flock back
to the streets they deserted;
rediscover everything we rebuilt.
Of course we learned how to be digestible,
how to shove our limbs into takeout boxes,
skin ourselves and sell the flesh
for profit. The owners of Kim Phuong
can pay off debt, send their daughter to college.
When their restaurant burns down
one winter night, they do not cry.
They can afford to rebuild everything.
In Vietnamese, Kim Phuong means golden
phoenix. I don’t say this for the irony.
It's not this poem's punchline. It’s my people’s
expectation that everything ours can burn
at any second. Koreatown, Little India,
Banglatown, Little Manila—No matter
how many pick at the bones
of immigrant communities,
We always endure the scorch
and cackle with a smile.
These are neighborhoods of necessity,
always having to cook up
the most authentic kind
of survival: After all,
If we’re gonna suffer,
we gotta do it over good food.
Discovery
For Jennifer Laude, a Filipina trans woman
murdered in a motel room by
US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton.
In court, Joseph used the trans panic defense,
claiming that upon “discovering” that Jennifer was transgender,
he had to kill her.
Us women must be masters of illusion then,
the irony being that our bodies
are the ones that always disappear.
Or, our bodies always end up discoveries.
I can’t help but remember Columbus
and the massacre made of the New World,
all the “third worlds”
America declared their own.
America,
thank you for liberating
brown bodies from their own foreign-ness
through wars,
colonies,
the hundreds of remaining military bases.
They discovered Jennifer
with her head submerged
in the motel room toilet.
Us women must be mindcontrollers
to be both desired
and deserving of death,
how men lust after our lips
wrapping around them
like a wet dream,
how we remain as secret as their
deleted browser histories,
as if to write us out of history.
Us women, we protect the most timeless secrets
from every hungry man
who thinks our bodies
still taste of spice route,
silk roads leading to our final breath.
America,
you don’t even know how to mourn
in my language;
don’t even have words
for this kind of sisterhood—
the way I learn of a sister’s death
on the evening news,
and all my insides ignite.
Us women, we got this careful way
we remember each other,
fight for each other,
celebrate those who survive
in case another sister is discovered
dead in the morning.
America,
you got Jennifer’s blood on your hands,
got centuries of my sisters’ blood on your hands.
As long as I’m alive,
I’ll never let you forget.