Mai's America

I just finished watching an awesome documentary called Mai's America on Free Speech TV (which is only available on Dish Network). It's about a Vietnamese girl named Mai who came to the United States to spend her final year of high school as an exchange student in (or near) Meridian, Mississippi.

Mai begins her American experience with a host family you might call, uhh, rednecks. (That's what they call themselves, anyway.) Both of the parents are unemployed and the teenage daughter seems to have raised herself. The home is not a happy place to be; it just blows my mind that this family could have been deemed worthy of hosting an exchange student. Not that the hosts are bad people or anything; the household is just clearly not a healthy environment for anyone, let alone an exchange student. Mai agrees.

Before I get in very deep, let me describe Mai a little bit.

Mai is a beautiful person. I'm not just talking about her physical appearance; I'm mostly talking about her energy and the gleam in her eyes and her heartwarming smile and the empathy she shows for all varieties of people. She is caring and curious. She sees the world through everyone's eyes, while those around her seem only capable of seeing through their own eyes. She is the kind of person you just want to be near.

In the beginning of the film, it's easy for the viewer to think of Mai as naive or uneducated because she has just dived head first into an alien culture. But right away, as she is shown interacting with her host family and at school and with new acquaintances, it is clear that Mai possesses a simple wisdom that somehow eludes almost all Americans. All the people she meets are so narrow-minded and judgmental, but Mai is genuinely friendly to everyone. She treats everyone with so much respect, and she is such a positive soul, yet it seems like everyone makes her feel like a misfit.

Except for one person. Early in her American experience, Mai begins a friendship with a gay drag queen named Chris, I believe. He adores her and treats her very well. I think they can both relate to each other because they both know how it feels to be a total outsider.

After several months of living with the redneck family, Mai decides she needs a change, so she moves in with a new host family. Her new host family is a young black couple who immediately provide a much more positive environment. But even though she has found a much better place to live, she ends up frustrated once again after the couple's relationship tenses and the wife starts preaching about how Mai's gay friend made the decision to be gay. It was not a preachy kind of preaching, but Mai was clearly frustrated by the host mother's refusal to step into the shoes of a gay person.

Mai also becomes frustrated when her school friends, who don't know she has a gay friend, begin speaking judgmentally about gay people. So even though she had already asked her gay friend Chris to be her prom date, she ends up going to prom with a Spanish exchange student instead. Although the film does not show her breaking the news to Chris, I think he understood why she changed her mind. Interestingly, though, Chris later reveals that he has torched all his drag queen gear and may have chosen to stop being gay. (Don't ask me how that's possible.)

Eventually Mai gets accepted to Tulane University and earns a scholarship that takes care of about half of her expenses. To help pay her tuition, she busts her ass as a waitress, yet she still feels like she's not living up to her end of "the deal." Soon enough she has to drop out of school because she can't afford it. Then her mother lets her know she can't come home to Vietnam because she has shamed her family or something.

Unfuckingbelievable.

In time Mai ends up in Detroit, painting fingernails and toenails, being a genius slave for stupid people, before going back to Vietnam.

I wish I could explain clearly how this film made me feel. For an hour and twenty minutes I had a smile on my face because Mai is such an amazing person. She's pure goodness in every way. She's so insightful and thoughtful and amazing, but no one seems to recognize how much she has to offer her world and the world.

But it damn near breaks my heart, too, for a couple reasons. First of all, I can't understand how people fail to see the incredible person in Mai. Second, I guess I know how it feels. I believe that I, like Mai, have so much to offer the world, but no one else sees it. And I'm just puzzled for both of us.

I want to give Mai a big hug, the kind of hug that really lets someone know you care. I sincerely hope she has found a place where she can fit in, and I hope she's doing well. And if she ever happens to stumble upon this entry, I hope she contacts me because I really feel the need to know her.

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