Last year I had the honour of being invited to be a judge to Western Sydney Rainbow Connections Writing Competition and was privileged to read LGBT+ stories on the topic “What It Was Like Living As An LGBT+ Community Member in Western Sydney?”. The winner was unanimous and I have the pleasure of sharing the 1st place winner here with you now! This one not only shares insight into their culture but they also share their perspective with the pressures of social standards and how it affects queer people. I’ll let the story speak for itself!!

Congratulations, Jenny Nguyen!!

So She Sews

My mother, she sewed. She told me it’s the one skill she had to offer when she came to Australia. From as early as my memories could reach, my mother could be found in our garage hunched over the sewing machine under a dim fluorescent light. Her figure was often
surrounded by textile mountains. To her left, there would be a seemingly random, abstract assortment of fabrics piled that were flitted with brown template paper. On her right, you could find completed designer dresses with retail price tags well beyond my mother’s means. Punctuating the steady chuka chuka of the sewing machine was constant ambient noise of the analog television box. My mother told me she found it to be less lonely if she could hear another voice – whether that was from hài kịch (comedy skits) or cải lương (operatic theatre) or Chinese and Korean dramas dubbed in Vietnamese.

I remember watching the dramas with fascination, marvelling at the grandiose and chivalrous ways men could express affection for their love interests. I was particularly fond of the kind of men that were soft, gentle pillars of support – a quiet, humble constant. I wondered if I
would be able to share my love for someone like that one day, or whether that’s simply not how girls are meant to be.

The garage: my mother’s workspace, my personal playground. I would often be found splayed on the ground, playing with my toys and talking to my mother. You could also find me methodically snipping excess thread off corners of fabrics or surgically extracting clumps of fabric and dust from the sewing machine motor. I took great pride in being my mother’s diligent assistant.

I remember my mother taking my hand as we strolled through Cabramatta fabric stores. She would let me pick out the fabrics I liked most to turn into my pajamas. She would often encourage me to pick “pretty” colours like pink and purple or fabrics with frills – I would
compromise with yellow or light blue (on a particularly good day, I managed to gain her approval for a flannel pattern). Her finishing touch on my pajamas would be to sew on the spare big brand labels she got from work – my homemade cotton pajamas thus tagged as “Lisa Ho.”

—

My mother had always dreamed of picking out a beautiful dress for my Year 12 Formal. I knew she would love nothing more than to pour her love into ensuring it fit me perfectly.

“Mum,” I begin, “I’m thinking of wearing a suit to Year 12 Formal.”

“Why?” my mother responded, surprised by my announcement. “Isn’t that what boys wear? You should wear a nice dress.”

“Girls wear suits too,” I motion at my Google search on my phone of women in business suits.

I quickly continued: “Besides, I already bought it.”

My mother furrowed her brow, waiting for me to continue.

“It’s just…” I paused, “a bit big for me. I need to get it tailored.”

I showed my mother my suit (I omitted the fact that it was from the men’s section in a department store). She tutted that the sleeves and pants were too long, the shoulders too broad and the waist needed to be cinched. She made it quite clear that she simply did not understand why I had decided to purchase something that was so ill-fitting but she relented to fix it up for me.

—

Today was the big day: year 12 formal. The night that was supposed to be a dazzling, unforgettable night. I felt nervous about the thought of walking into a room and having all eyes on me because I wasn’t in a dress. I shrugged on my navy suit and look in the mirror. I found myself wishing my shirt could lie perfectly flat on my chest and that I had suspenders to keep my pants in place. I was grateful that despite her chagrin, my mother helped make this suit fit me better. I took a deep breath willing myself to be brave. I reminded myself that
tomorrow was another day.