REMOVE THE DUKE’S STATUE?
A Short Story
Imagine this: It is July 2020. A protest march is taking place in front of the arrival terminal of John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. Dozens of protesters are marching up and down, loudly demanding the removal of the 9-foot bronze statue of “the Duke” from main lobby of the airport. They are university students—mostly African American. A staff writer with the Los Angeles Times is covering the demonstration. He notices that one of the protesters is a petite young Vietnamese woman, who is out of place among the boisterous Black demonstrators. She is silent and not moving from her spot directly in front of the entrance doors, and she is holding a modest sign printed in calligraphy: REMOVE A MONSTER.
The newspaper man is intrigued. He approaches the young woman, introduces himself as a reporter from the Times, and asks if he can interview her. She nods yes. The reporter points to a bench away from the parading and shouting, and in the shade. They sit down.
“Why do you say, ‘a monster’?” he asks her. “Was John Wayne a monster? The other people are simply calling him ‘a racist.’”
“Sir, please let me tell you my story. Then you’ll understand. My name is Cindy Tran. I’m finishing up my master’s degree at UCI. My Vietnamese friends at the University and my extended family in Westminster all disagree with me. After Saigon fell in 1975, John Wayne was one of the influential people who urged the American government to take in refugees and allow them to become citizens—among them, my paternal grandparents and most of their family, in 1979.
“But my story is different. I was born in Vietnam in 1995. My father didn’t get permission to leave until that year. And I was born after he left. He left alone. In 2000, he was finally able to get the communist government’s permission for me, my mother, my five brothers, my maternal grandparents, and my two uncles and families—20 people in all—to leave and come to America.
“In December 2000, our plane landed here at this airport. I was five—the littlest of the newest refugees. That’s when I met the monster. And every night in my nightmares, for the last twenty years, he has come after me.
“Every night, I relive the nightmare. Ours was the last plane of the evening, arriving just before eleven. It was dark and cold outside. When we came off the plane and got into the terminal, dozens of relatives—including my father—were waiting to greet us. We then went down the escalator to the baggage area. For some reason, our bags were delayed. But that was okay—everyone was hugging, crying, chattering loudly—getting reacquainted and in some cases meeting family members for the first time. My father briefly picked me up, then put me down to talk to my brothers. I was tiny for my age. People ignored me. I was exhausted. We had been traveling for almost two days. I saw stacks of luggage over to on one side—it was Christmas Time, and this was luggage that had been late arriving and not yet retrieved by passengers from previous flights. I went over to the luggage, found a comfortable bed on a large padded suitcase, and went to sleep.
“When I awoke—apparently hours later—everyone was gone. The lights—except for dim emergency lights—were off. Pure silence. I went to the doors that led outside, but they were locked. And in any case, there was no one outside—no cars, no buses, no taxis. And it was dark, except for a few soft emergency lights. I was afraid. “They forgot me!” I whispered out loud to myself. I was terrified. I started rushing from exit door to exit door, trying to get outside where they could find me when they came back for me. But all the doors were locked. I tried dozens.
“Finally, I came to a large open area, where it was much lighter. The high glass exit doors were locked, but there were several bright streetlamps outside that lit up the inside area around me. The floor had large squares of polished marble. In the middle of the area I saw a big white platform, with a smaller platform on top of it. “A perfect spot with lots of light,” I whispered to myself. “If I’m up on that white platform, they can see me from the street.”
“I went over and sat down. After a few minutes, I lay down. That’s when I saw the monster. I was looking up at two huge legs. I screamed. The monster was dressed in polished leather. The monster’s right hand was reaching for a large pistol that was strapped to his side by a big belt. The monster’s left hand was reaching down to grab me. His eyes were black spots and were staring down at me. And the face was American! He had a mean grin. There was a scarf wrapped around his neck and he was wearing a cowboy hat. Light from the lamps outside made the monster gleam.
“I curled up like a baby, sobbing and convulsing. Suddenly I felt a poking in my side. I was sure it was the monster’s gun. I opened my eyes and saw a policeman’s night stick, then the face of the monster—this time only a few feet from my face. He had transformed from a cowboy into an American policeman, in tan uniform, a policeman hat, and a pistol on his side. I’m guessing the monster was saying angrily, ‘Little girl, get up. What are you doing here?’ But I didn’t understand because the monster was yelling at me in English and I only spoke Vietnamese.
“I fainted.
“When I woke up, I was alone on a gurney in a small dark room. I imagined I was in the monster’s prison and he was preparing me for his supper. I wet my panties. I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t say anything. ‘Maybe the monster isn’t hungry yet,’ I thought to myself, trembling.
“Suddenly the door opened, and the light was switched on. My mother rushed in. But the monster was following close behind her—the burly American policeman-monster, who was still carrying his long night stick and still had a big pistol strapped to his side.
“I fainted again.
“I didn’t wake up until the next afternoon. When I woke up, I was in a bedroom in my father’s house. My mother was sitting next to the bed in an easy chair, watching over me.
“Every night since then—for twenty years—I’ve relived that terrible night, when I met the monster.”
The reporter looked at Cindy. “It was the airport statue of John Wayne, wasn’t it? And you think that if you can remove the statue, your nightmares will go away.”
“Yes,” the young woman answered. “And I don’t know—and I don’t care—whether John Wayne the man was a racist. But his statue is entirely separate from him, and it’s a monster. If I had been a little white girl, I would have recognized ‘the Duke’ and would have smiled, remembering the movies I had seen him in. But to a Vietnamese, an African American, a Native American, to any person of color, the statue is a monster. And it screeches, ‘White Power!’”