from "-ISMS: Exploring the Intersectionality of Identity" exhibit (2017)
ŋ seeks to disentangle feelings of cultural fraudulence from those of ethnic intimacy as a Vietnamese-American who has grown increasingly aware of the whiteness of her hometown and her lifelong inability to pronounce her family name.
The velar nasal [ŋ] is a sound heard at the end of many English words, such as sinking, but is placed at the beginning of many Vietnamese words, including Nguyễn, a surname which is shared by forty percent of the Vietnamese population. Nguyễn is written repetitively in the style of penmanship taught to Vietnamese schoolchildren, which, much like creaking tone of the name itself, is simultaneously foreign and familiar to me.
