Draft 2

My name is Dat. It is Vietnamese. The correct pronunciation is Dak with a short and hard a. However, at the age of three, I had an Italian woman named Maria in the Italian neighborhood of East Boston as a baby-sitter who called me Dat with a Boston accent - Da-t. And being that it was the first time I heard my name in English, Da-t with a Boston accent, stuck. Da-t is what my friends call me, but Dak is what my family calls me.  
 
 My name is a small, but significant, metaphor for the life of a Boston born Vietnamese-American with immigrant parents. At a very young age, I learned the value of an education and the necessity of knowing English well. English may not be the official language of the United States, but it is clear those who cannot speak or write it well are marginalized in this society. They are misunderstood and all too often passed off as unintelligent. 

      I have been my family's translator since the age of five. I would go to the bank with my mother and father, who came to the United States by way of a small fishing boat, a six month stint at a Malaysian refugee camp, an asylum rejection from Australia, and finally a flight sponsored by a small Boston organization that helped refugees of the Vietnam War. I would explain to the bank teller that the address on our checks was wrong, or that my mother wanted to deposit fifty dollars of her check and cash twenty-five for groceries. Sometimes I would go with my parents to the Hospital to help fill out all the administrative forms and explain to them the Doctor's advice. This was before they set up a translating service. And in middle school, I wrote my mother's resume. 

      All my translating services led me to choose a major in English at The George Washington University. In my pursuit to learn the language well, I grew to love it. I took a number of creative writing classes to learn how to express the intangible, and tutored disadvantaged children in the District of Columbia to learn how to teach the process of reading the language.

       For almost two years now, I have been working at T-W as a Legal Assistant, to explore the possibilities of a career in law. What we do for our clients is something I feel I have done all my life for my biggest client, my family. We answer questions about policies, procedures and the regulations for our clients. I go to town hall for my dad to figure out what the rules are for putting up a fence. I call the phone company for my mother to ask about a certain charge.  

      What I have learned while at T-W is that our society is made civil by the written word -the law, and if we are to move forward, all the citizens of the society must be able to take part in its dialogue. I still introduce myself to people as Da-t, with a Boston accent. Most times I will repeat it and then spell it out. And every now and then I'll tell its story because I do, at least, have that luxury.