Baba's First Summer in America

My father lives in Hanoi. For twenty years, I've begged him to visit me in California. He always said he was too old, the flight was too long, America was too big. This June, at seventy-six, he finally came.

He was suspicious of everything at first. The highways were too wide. The supermarkets were too cold. The coffee was too weak. He brought his own coffee filter and a bag of beans from home.

But slowly, he softened. He loved the ocean at Santa Cruz and stood on the pier watching the sea lions for an hour. He loved the Vietnamese neighborhood in San Jose, where he could speak his own language and argue about the price of mangoes. He was amazed by my children, who he'd only met on screens. My son taught him to play basketball in the driveway. He was terrible. He played every day.

On his last night, we sat on my porch and drank his coffee. He said, "Your life here is good." Then he said, "I'll come back next summer." I had to look away so he didn't see my face.