Worldly Unforgiving Swimming Pool
A Vietnamese poet inspired by Henri Matisse’s “The Swimming Pool,” Lê Thị Diễm Thúy writes about the stories immigrants remember as they cross into America. As looking at the bewildering work of art that is “The Swimming Pool,” Thúy draws back to her Vietnamese roots and is taken back to the nights upon nights of boating and searching for shore. She correlated “The Swimming Pool” with the world’s unforgiving swimming pool that is- the ocean. For other Vietnamese, there are still moments in their lives where flashes of immigration hit them like a flash of darkness.
My dad for one talks about his nights on the small boat who’s occupancy number should have been 8, but was pushed to 18. My dad, who always looks for the light-hearted humor in things, still remembers the tragic depths of his nights on the boat. He tells me how he lived in fear, constantly wondering if their boat would be stopped by pirates or the Vietnamese government. How he was so hungry and thirsty, but had to spare the food and water for his little brothers. As a lived adult, he still picks up shards of these memories, just like how Thúy did.
