Unpacking "Interchangeable": Sex Work, the Pursuit of Whiteness, The Vietnam War

“She knew that you came from the US of A, That you’re nobody’s prey and your skin’s as bright as the Moon in a Mid-Autumn sky. She wanted to be in the US of A to be nobody’s prey with skin as bright as the Moon in a Mid-Autumn sky"

When I was a s3x worker over 10+ years ago, I often got requests from yt men to be the stereotypical subservient Asian companion. Once in awhile, I'd get more specific requests, one was to pretend I was a girl they knew when they were in Vietnam during the war.

This song was written well after those s3x worker days were over, but it had taken me that long to process, to truly understand the overarching context and dehumanizing experiences of this. At the time, I was like...whatever, might as well take their money. But I wrote this tapping into an odd, complex, contrasting set of emotions - resentment & rage for being asked such a thing, for these expectations, power for being able to provide this experience, and grief for what I imagined the experience of this 'girlfriend' he had, that maybe she saw him as a way to get out of war torn Vietnam.

This month, April of 2025, is the 50th Anniversary Month of the Fall of Saigon and I’ve been feeling a lot of grief.

I was not there, I was born in the USA after my Mom came here with several siblings by boat, my Dad defected from the South Vietnamese army and sought asylum here where they met and had me and my brothers. This month is not only the 50th anniversary month of the end of the Vietnam war, but also my Dad's birth month.

As someone without 'all the information', who feels very disconnected from my family mostly due to my own feelings of shame, I've had to construct my family's story from independent research, short anecdotes gathered from relatives at parties, things I overheard my mother say to her sisters, from terrible American made movies about the war. My parents did not share much with me, I did not even know that my Dad was an anti-war activist on US college campuses before I was born, I only heard after he passed in 2015. That knowledge about my Dad is also a source of grief, pride, and anger in this time. I wish he shared those experiences with me, that he was still here to teach me optimism about a coming revolution.

I grew up really, desperately wishing I was white but because I couldn't be, I did my best to appeal to whiteness, especially cishetmen, even if that meant leaning into the marginalization and exotification of my Asian-ness and flattening myself. As an autistic, I saw those patterns, the messaging from my environment and saw that as my 'way out', the pathway to ‘success’ as a 2nd generation Vietnamese American 1st born daugther, taught to prioritze her physical appearance and achievements to make her parents’ suffering ‘worth it’.

Did this 'girlfriend' perhaps feel that whiteness was the way out, in every which way, as I did for too long, while whiteness and colonization was also responsible for so much violence and instability?

I also have memories of aunties talking about creams that whiten their skin, them telling me how fortunate I was to have such light skin. My mom telling me about her dreams to come to the US, my aunts telling stories of her obsession with Victor Hugo and Western culture, her fluency in French, only to be too busy trying to survive to realize any dreams she had once she arrived and found herself raising my brothers and I, without knowing English, without the ability to drive.

I don't remember her reading much European literature as a kid, she was too busy trying to feed us. I believe she is also neurodivergent and incredibly traumatized from her experiences on that boat across the world, as I recall her briefly mentioning having seen children die from starvation and pirates attacking, mostly to shame me into feeling grateful for the life she provided me with anytime I said I wish I hadn't been born.

"but the Americans rescued us and flew us out of Saigon when the communists took over...”

I do not blame anyone for saying this as I know people are only thinking of survival in that moment, based on what they experience on the ground and who they were with.

I just want to highlight the complexity of emotions and perspectives, and the multitudes of harm and deception caused by Imperialistic violence.

I think about this everyday as a mother, as someone who simultaneously benefits and suffers from US superpower status, experiencing grief and intergenerational trauma as a result and watching horrific atrocities paid for by my tax dollars, knowing those survivors and their descendents will also experience trauma for generations to come. As a Matriarch, I think about ending this cycle for my kids all the time, with the determination to maintain safety for their joy and aspirations.