Fue Xiong has always liked to write.
However, the 17-year-old senior at St. Paul’s Central High School was “speechless” when he found out he’ll keep company with literary greats like Jonathan Franzen, Neil Gaiman and Toni Morrison when his words appear on bags and cups at Chipotle restaurants, starting Monday.
Fue Xiong was one of 10 students, and the only one in the Twin Cities area, to win a nationwide essay contest, and his essay scored the highest of any winner. The feature is part of the restaurant’s Cultivating Thought Author Series in which quotes from inspirational leaders and authors grace its cups and bags.
Fue Xiong’s English teacher, Anthony Jacobs, made it an assignment for all his Expository Composition students apply for the scholarship.
“I had always written essays about my parents, but never involved with food,” said Fue Xiong of his winning submission, titled “Two Minutes about Sardines.”
The essay, which is deeply personal, describes a scene from the day his mother and seven brothers and sisters — Fue is a middle child — left his native country of Thailand.
“This is just part of his story,” Jacobs said. “His story is even more amazing than that. … The essay, if anything, is really understated, which is I think where part of the power comes from.”
Fue Xiong said his mother was very proud of her son.
“She shed a couple tears (after she read it),” he said. “Then she gave me a hug and she was happy about it. My whole family was speechless because no one in my family ever got any scholarship.”
That scholarship, which was awarded to all 10 winners of the essay contest, is worth $20,000. He’ll spend it at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where he will attend in 2017 after spending a year in the military.
“He got accepted to the U of M, but he feels this incredible drive to serve his country because his family was given the chance to come here,” Jacobs said.
More than a million Chipotle customers will see a quote from his essay every day during its run.
Fue said he’s leaning toward a major in science, possibly chemistry, but he did say winning the contest was making him reconsider a little.
Jacobs said his student worked hard on the essay.
“It was a really hard assignment,” Jacobs said. “To write a personal essay about food. … If you met this kid, you’d just be so impressed. He’s just a humble, wonderful kid, I can’t think of a better kid to be recognized for this.”
Writing the essay, Fue Xiong said, was cathartic for him.
“It empowers me,” he said. “My words speak up and tell the people around me, tell my story and what I’ve been through. It just gave me a voice.”
Here’s his essay, in its entirety:
“A helicopter overhead. A truck engine roars past. Soldiers in dirty green uniforms, surrounded by a cloud of warm brown dust, unload buckets full of raw sardines. All the refugees rush to get in line for food.
“My teenage brother held me back saying, ‘Today is our last day to get a meal like this before we depart to America. We can take our time.’
“When the crowd was gone, my oldest brother, nearly an adult, walked to the soldiers and returned with three raw sardines and a bag filled with two handfuls of rice. We walked the dirt road home, my five-year-old stomach wanting me to hurry; my bare feet telling me to slow down and avoid the tooth-sharp pebbles. My mother stood waiting in her black dress outside the bamboo hut. Usually full of worry and nervousness, she smiled when we handed her the rice and silver fish. Our departure from a year trapped behind the barbed wire camp fence was tomorrow. Twenty minutes later, my mother, eight siblings, and I surrounded a paper plate of fried sardines and rice on the dirt floor. My youngest sister, Yer, ate first. Our hands unwashed, we each took turns. For my mother, there was nothing left except the meatless head. She took it and smiled. The sardines were so salty I had to stuff my mouth with a handful of rice.
” ‘Mom,’ I said, ‘Did you put a lot of salt on this sardine? Why is it so salty?’
” ‘No, my son,’ she said, ‘It’s your tears.’
“An airplane flew somewhere far above us. I was frightened of what life in America would be like.
“ ‘I miss dad. Will he ever come back?’
” ‘He won’t, but he is up there watching over you,’ my mom said. ‘Let go of everything. It’s time to start a new life.’
“Twelve years later, sardines still taste like tears.”