Amy's Blog

It is amazing how life can change.  Wow.  Thursday nights once used to explore the city are now used to go to bed early in a last ditch effort to survive what is left of the work week.

I like to title this someone(s) I used to know.  Thursday night out on the town with “life long friends.”  But something that never changes is that one of the few things that can get me out of my Johnson County Bubble on a “school night” is the Kansas City arts scene.

My friend, Vi (top left), is a local performing artist and writer.  He is the director of the Buffalo Room at Westport Flea Market. http://westportfleamarket.com/the-buffalo-room/  Vi was born in Vietnam during the war and moved to the states, with his family, as a refugee, while a small child in the early 80s.  His performance memoir, written by Vi himself, and directed by his beautiful wife Mackenzie, is playing at the Buffalo Room for the next 10 days or so and opening night was Thursday, April 30th.  The production, A Butcher’s Son, tells the story of Vi’s family and their origins in Vietnam, their survival and escape from the war torn country to start life anew in the United States to get their own piece of the American Dream.  https://www.facebook.com/events/1424119994562927/

Vi’s family moved to Garden City where his parents worked as butchers at the Iowa Beef meat packing plant to try and build a life for their children…a life that they could not have had in post war Vietnam. His story is so moving.  Opening night of the production was tonight, Thursday, April 30th, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.   It’s hard to believe that the end of the war was in the very recent past.  I grew up in Emporia, KS, where Iowa Beef had a huge presence in the 80s and 90s.  We lived in that little town with many Vietnamese Americans and Mexican Americans.  However, we lived in a segregated world.  My parents and I living the American Dream in our little house on Chestnut Street (we were poor and humble, I took the dream for granted, and I recognize the innocence and ignorance of my childhood).

While watching the performance tonight, I couldn’t help but think that we missed out on hearing the stories of our neighbors.  We missed out on getting to know them and their struggles.  We didn’t know them.  They were Asians.  They lived in a cluster of extended family.  Their children and grandchildren sat quietly in class.  English was their second language.  They were good at math.  But we didn’t try to befriend them in the classroom or on the playground.  We knew that they were different. We didn’t know what they went through to make it to Emporia, KS.

I’m so grateful to Vi for telling his family’s story and for giving people like me the opportunity to learn their piece of history. Vi and Mackenzie’s vision is to take this performance on the road and to tell his story in the meatpacking towns across Kansas.  I hope that I can help them to tell the story in my home town of Emporia.  A town so rich with the history and stories of these refugees and their decendents.

The Butcher’s Son cast and crew.