Grammar, Identity, And The Dark Side Of The Subjunctive: Phuc Tran At TEDxDirigo

When my daughter was born two years ago, I decided to take a half-year’s leave of absence from teaching to stay at home with her. When I shared this plan with my dad, he immediately panicked because what he heard in Vietnamese was “Dad, I won’t be teaching next year because I’ll be staying at home with the baby.” His response was, “What?! You quit your job? Are you crazy? Who quits their job in this economy?” Even though I assured him that it was just a leave of absence, he was unable to comprehend what was, to him, the sheer uncertainty of not having a job. What he knew were just the facts: that I had had a job and that I wasn’t going to have that job. Imagine, then, coming from a language that has no subjunctive (like Vietnamese) to a language that has a superbly rich subjunctive fabric (like English). What happens when someone comes from the one to the other?

Someone like me happens.

I came from a language where I could only talk about the factuality of something to suddenly being able to talk about multiple possibilities in the present, past, and future. This was an incredibly potent and powerful awakening. But equally dangerous was my ability to consider what should have been. There I was, hovering between two very different worlds: Vietnamese with its stark indicative, and English with its mirage of the subjunctive.

The subjunctive was the mirage of an oasis when I was young. Through the power of the subjunctive, I longed for a world where my name wasn’t weird and prone to mockery (Phuc you. Get the Phuc out of here. Shut the Phuc up.). I thought, “What if my name were normal? Yes! A normal name would be amazing.” At the beginning of 4th grade, I announced to my classmates that I was changing my name. I stood up and proudly said, “My new name is Peter; from here on out, please refer to me as Peter.” I envisioned a future of no more bullying and teasing. My classmates? They said “WHAT?! Peter? As in suck my Peter?” That year that I tried to change my name to Peter was also the same year that I learned about the double entendre.

Layered on top of the tangled web of languages were the cultural and racial tensions of rural Pennsylvania. Here I was, trying to pretend that I was a typical American teen. I skateboarded; I got into fights; I ran away from home; I played in a punk band; I smoked pot; I worked at a gas station. It was like this Asian kid got photoshopped into a John Hughes movie, but instead of being the punchline to a dick joke, this Asian kid wanted to be the leading man.

I had no idea what should have happened. In my small Pennsylvania town, I didn’t look like my friends. My family, full of brown immigrants and exotic smells, didn’t look like my friends’ families. As a result, I didn’t know what my future should have looked like as I spun my wheels in the quagmire of the subjunctive, longing to be someone else or somewhere else. When I graduated high school, I was intent on pursuing a double major in art and English. At college, I showed my portfolio to my art professor and got a waiver for the 101 class, and because of my AP English class in high school, I got to sign up for a 200 level English class that first semester. I was ready to read great books and think great thoughts.

Then, the unexpected happened. I hated my English and art classes.

By the end of that first semester, I had dropped both majors and was undeclared. I was utterly deflated and depressed because I hated what I should have loved. Dejected, I told my dad that I didn’t want to study English and art anymore as I awaited some reprimand from him. My father, surprisingly, was completely calm and without a hint of disappointment. There was no “you should” speech from him because that would have required a command of the subjunctive, which he lacked. His response was simple. “You don’t like English and art? Well, that’s fine. Don’t study something you don’t like. What do you like? Study that.” That was my father’s response–pure, unfiltered reality delivered with the indicative. So that’s what I did.

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