Star-Crossed Brothers | 2

Summary

Blood Will Tell | Episode 2: Star-Crossed Brothers

Podcast: Blood Will Tell
Host: Jen Miller
Date: March 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

In episode two, “Star-Crossed Brothers,” host Jen Miller delves deep into the upbringing and adolescent years of Trung and Ahn, Vietnamese-American identical twins caught up in a tragic chain of events that would later see one brother wrongly accused of murder. This episode traces how the twins’ relationship, family dynamics, and the pressures of identity and masculinity shaped their youth in both Vietnam and San Jose, setting the stage for their eventual choices under immense duress. Through rich storytelling, firsthand recollections, and interwoven family and community voices, Jen Miller examines how trauma, competition, assimilation, and the allure of belonging collide in the twins’ coming of age.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Early Years in Vietnam

• Family Separation and Reunion:
  • At age 4, their mother moves to California, leaving Trung, Ahn, and their father Duc behind in rural Long Canh, Vietnam. The twins grow up with their father for several years before rejoining their mother in America.
  • Notable memory: Playing outside, climbing a fig tree using their dad’s car. This ends with Trung attempting to copy Ahn, falling, and badly breaking his arm—an early metaphor for their dynamic.
    • Quote:

      “Trying to close the distance between himself and Ahn. Trying to be seen by Ahn, to be his equal.” – Jen Miller (02:56)

Adjustment to American Life

• Resettlement in San Jose:
  • The family unites in a Vietnamese hub of San Jose, supported by food stamps and Section 8 housing. Home life is steeped in cultural reminders—traditional meals, an ancestor altar, and war tributes.
  • Assimilation & Family Pressure:
    • Trung gravitates toward Americanized kids, striving to erase any trace of his immigrant identity to fit in. He remodels his accent, wardrobe, and attitudes to win approval.
      • Quote:

        “I made a conscious effort to fix the way I said those things.” – Trung (11:41)

    • Ahn is less concerned with fitting in, maintaining a stoic, combative demeanor that quickly earns him a reputation.
      • Quote:

        “I didn’t smile a lot. People was like, hey man, why you mugging me?” – Ahn (12:39)

Masculinity, Competition, and Sibling Rivalry

• Father’s Influence:

  • Duc, marked by war and traditional ideas, instills discipline, martial arts skills, and the expectation that men “can’t show weakness. Boys should swallow their tears.”
    • Quote:

      “A man must be tough, strong and healthy. They can’t show weakness. Boys should swallow their tears.” – Duc (10:47)

  • Ahn excels by his father’s tough standards, while Trung is cast as the “intellect”—a label he resents and strives to overcome.

• Diverging Paths in Adolescence:

  • Trung becomes academically successful, popular, and assimilated, but still feels eclipsed by his brother’s perceived strength.
  • Ahn becomes notorious for fighting and begins walking the line between safety and street life.

The Lure and Danger of Local Crews

• Peer Groups & Criminal Temptations:

  • Ahn befriends Charles and soon, under the sway of Charles’s older brother Vincent, becomes exposed to gang culture and criminal bravado.

    • Quote:

      “He just pulled the gun back and shattered the KFC box.” – Ahn describing Vincent’s swagger (15:51)

  • As high school looms, both twins spend more time in risky environments. Ahn is “initiated” by Kevin into a violent group—a pivotal, formative moment:

    • Quote & Timestamp:

      “He just attacked him.” – Kevin describing Ahn’s initiation (22:55)
      “You blacked out and you woke up a gangster.” – Trung teasing Ahn (23:50)

    • Ahn feels empowered by this belonging, “not a wannabe anymore.” Trung feels left behind, increasingly jealous of Ahn’s independence and social status.

Trung’s Transformation and Entry into Organized Crime

• Catching Up with Ahn:

  • Trung finds his own “mentor,” Bobby, who introduces him to drug dealing and the world of the Vietnamese American mafia.
    • Quote:

      “Recreating myself into that image automatically, I felt so much pride.” – Trung (26:54)

  • Trung is emboldened by this new identity, culminating in a performative “making it rain” cash drop at the local mall—a moment of power after a childhood of feeling powerless.
    • Quote & Timestamp:

      “I get to be someone else for the first time. Like I’m better than you guys now.” – Trung (31:14)

• Initiation and Pledge to a Criminal Organization:

  • Trung attends a banquet with gang leaders, where loyalty, violence, and readiness for battle are the ground rules.
    • Quote:

      “If you really want to have what we have, if you want to start enjoying the benefits, you gotta put your balls on the line.” – Big Homie to Trung (33:24)

    • Trung is all in, feeling equal to Ahn for the first time—unaware of the perilous consequences to come.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Sibling Rivalry in Metaphor:

  “Chasing Ahn, the brother who is always first up the tree and never seems to worry about falling.” – Jen Miller (03:05)

• Masculinity Lessons:

  “I would never be as brave as my brother. That encouraged me to prove to myself and to the universe that I’m not this scared kid.” – Trung (29:01)

• Power and Belonging:

  “Becoming the aggressor in itself was also intoxicating.” – Trung (31:45)

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Notable Timestamps

• 00:14 – Opening and return to the twins’ Vietnam childhood
• 04:47 – The family’s American rituals and wrestling on TV
• 09:47 – Father’s discipline and expectations
• 11:41–12:27 – Trung’s quest for assimilation and social capital
• 13:25–15:16 – Early dalliances with crime and street culture
• 17:34 – Skate park humiliation, gangs, and vulnerability
• 21:03–24:05 – Ahn’s violent initiation and Trung’s complicated admiration
• 26:24 – Trung’s partnership with Bobby and entry into organized crime
• 30:04–31:20 – Public “making it rain” power play
• 32:47–35:21 – Gang initiation, pledges of loyalty, and family parallels
• 36:06–36:22 – Preview of the next episode’s violence and stakes

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Themes & Tone

The episode’s tone is deeply reflective and cinematic, weaving together memories, candid self-assessment, and the family’s immigrant realities. Jen Miller’s reporting is empathetic but unsparing, laying bare the fraught mix of affection, rivalry, and flawed masculinity that ties and divides the twins. Both Trung’s and Ahn’s voices reveal the tug-of-war between vulnerability and bravado, assimilation and belonging, safety and danger.

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Concluding Reflection

“Star-Crossed Brothers” brings listeners inside the formative crucible of Trung and Ahn’s adolescence, setting up the psychological and cultural pressures that would ultimately propel one twin into silence and the other into sacrifice. It’s an evocative exploration of the costs of brotherhood, masculinity, and the yearning to matter—illuminating how far one might go to belong, be seen, and protect what and who matters most.

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End of Summary for Episode 2: Star-Crossed Brothers

Transcript

[Audible Announcer]

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[Jen Miller]

Campsite media. To understand why Trung followed Ahn into the fight at the birthday party and how he came to make such devastating decisions, then you've got to rewind through their years of high school and middle school back to their childhood, which began thousands of miles away. It's the middle of the afternoon when Trung and Ahn come bounding out their front door. The boys are seven, identically dressed in black and white Henley tees and jeans so long they spill down over their boots. They take off across the dirt yard, the gate of their single bedroom home clanging behind them.

[Trung]

It wasn't too fancy, but it was very homey.

[Jen Miller]

When the twins were 4, their mom moved to California to put down roots for the family. Since then, the twins and their father, Duc, have lived on the outskirts of Long Canh, an agricultural town in southern Vietnam. Out beyond their gate is the main road into town. In the back, a pig pen and lush forest.

[Trung]

Banana trees like a bunch of tropical fruits.

[Jen Miller]

And beside the front gate, a fig tree, which the boys like to climb.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

It had a.

[Trung]

Like a long, steady, strong branch that extended out to where the car was.

[Jen Miller]

An has recently discovered a new trick. Using their dad's white Nissan to reach one of the branches. He takes off running and hops onto the hood.

[Ahn]

I got over basically from a car to the tree.

[Jen Miller]

Although he's only a little kid, it's clear that Ahn is a risk taker. Trung watches as his brother reaches the branch and pulls himself up into the tree. No problem.

[Trung]

Climbing across the tree just like, super fast.

[Jen Miller]

And now Trung wants to try.

[Trung]

Like, we're always competing, always trying to just copy him.

[Ahn]

He was trying to do the exact same thing.

[Jen Miller]

Trung hops onto the car and then takes a big leap toward the tree with his hands outstretched, ready to grasp the branch. His hands wrap firmly around it. Yes. He starts pulling his body upward. But before he can move his legs any closer to the branch, he feels a sharp sting on his hands. He looks up to see ants swarming his fingers. He panics, lets go, and crashes to the ground.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

My left arm planted to the ground and it just snapped. It was gross. Like the bottom of my arm to the top. It was like going in two different directions.

[Jen Miller]

Ahn looks down in shock.

[Ahn]

Basically, his bone was sticking out. I was like, what the.

[Jen Miller]

Soon, the twins and their dad are rushing to the hospital in Saigon, 90 minutes away. The break is bad and requires surgery, but it heals just Fine. No one will ever be able to tell Trung's arm was ever broken. Still, that's the bone. Those are the physical wounds. Trung will spend his adolescence replaying that leap from the car, trying to close the distance between himself and an. Trying to be seen by Ahn to be his equal. And the way he'll do it, at least some of the time, will be to chase an, the brother who is always first up the tree and never seems to worry about falling. From wundery and campside media. I'm jen miller and this is blood will tell. This is episode episode 2 star crossed brothers. It's a regular Friday night for 12 year old trung and Ahn. They're plopped on the couch in the living room of their California home watching the Edge pummel the Hardy Boys on tv.

[Trung]

My family together, we were really into wwe.

[Ahn]

Dad liked Edge.

[Trung]

Dad liked Edge too. Yeah, yeah.

[Jen Miller]

Their dad, Duck, watches from the couch while their mom, Lan an, changes into her floral pajamas after her shift at the dry cleaners and before she starts dinner. It had taken Lan an decades to get her family to America. When Saigon fell at the end of the Vietnam War, her sister was the only family member to make it out of the country. Some 30 years later, Lan an received her green card, but not her husband and children. Now finally, five years after that, they've reunited in America and more specifically in San Jose, California, where about 10% of the population identifies as Vietnamese American. And the family lives in an affordable housing complex alongside other refugees and Vietnamese immigrants. Their apartment is bursting with reminders of Vietnam. Photos of the brothers as little boys dressed in identical outfits. An altar to the family ancestors, tributes to the South Vietnamese Army. And then there are the family meals. Trung's stomach growls as the sour sweet smell of tamarind and ginger wafts through their two bedroom apartment.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Traditional Vietnamese dishes would definitely like. That's pretty much the popular one that's always there once in a while. My mom used to be busting down with a banh Saeo, right? And what she does is like so good.

[Jen Miller]

In his mom's cooking, Trung feels a deep comfort.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

My mom, I can tell that she was trying to make up for all those lost years. I felt very loved by her.

[Jen Miller]

She carries the steaming bowls of soup to the living room table. But before Ahn can get up, trunk jumps from the couch and body slams him.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Right next to the kitchen there's that big carpet, but there's like a mat that they put over. I think it was like A red mat or something that's kind of like

[Trung]

our wwe, like stadium or ring rave.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

You know how they always say, like,

[Trung]

do not do this, do not try this at home. We always tried it at home.

[Jen Miller]

An claws his way back onto the couch and the boys collapse side by side on the cushions before their mom calls them to the table. The family eats dinner like this almost every night together for years, Duck had prepared the twins for this move. He'd set up the promise of America, a place where everything was bigger and better. He'd made the boys eat twice as much for a whole year so they could match the size and strength of American kids. He'd raised them on movies about Wall street and the American West. But this was about much more than the American dream. As a young man, Duck served in the infantry of the South Vietnamese Army. He'd seen his hometown destroyed and watched the United States abandon his country. He'd survived a communist re education camp. Then he'd applied for a visa through a program intended for such survivors and was turned down. In short, he'd sacrificed too much to give up on this country. America owed him. But Duck quickly learns his idea of American bounty is as much a fiction as the wrestling on tv. He opens up to me about it with help from a translator.

[Duc (Father)]

Bringing my children to America made me very happy. But I was also sad about many things.

[Jen Miller]

The twins feel the tension between their parents, how they've become like strangers to each other. And they watch their 59 year old father struggle to find his footing. The family depends on food stamps. Their Section 8 housing voucher is reserved for four person households making less than $53,000 a year. If that doesn't sound like a lot, it's because it's not. It's just over half the median income for their area. But getting a job would push the family over the maximum household income for their housing voucher. So instead, Duck becomes a full time parent. For a man raised with incredibly old school ideas about gender roles, this is an ego blow. Duck fills the twins free time with activities. He enrolls them in a weekend Vietnamese school. He signs them up for an all Vietnamese Boy Scout troop where they can learn survival skills while connecting with their culture. He puts them in Kung fu. In Vietnam, the twins had already earned black belts in taekwondo and he enrolls them in that too. Why not become double black belts?

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

He was part of the military in Vietnam, so it was like he was training us to be in the military. Right.

[Jen Miller]

In addition to obedience and responsibility, Duc tries to instill in Them a sense of healthy competition. But the twins are two steps ahead of him. Competitiveness between siblings seems pretty standard, especially when you're kids. But when you've got identical twin brothers who've been raised to dress the same, do the same activities, go everywhere together. It only makes the need to stand out greater. Especially when a twin seems to naturally excel at the one thing that is most important to their father.

[Duc (Father)]

When learning taekwondo, the kids fight with each other. But Chung, he cried immediately after being bitten. As for an, when he got hurt, he stayed silent.

[Jen Miller]

And in Duk's eyes, silence is a marker of strength and crying is a sign of weakness.

[Duc (Father)]

A man must be tough, strong and healthy. They can't show weakness. Boys should swallow their tears.

[Jen Miller]

Both of the twins know their father's expectations. And Trung knows that Ahn has passed his father's test.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

My dad always says like, oh, he's like this hero. He's like this like person who fights for what he believes in. And I'm the opposite of that. In his eyes, I'm more of the intellect. That's what he would say.

[Jen Miller]

Trung hates that his father sees him as weak. That he never seems to be able to catch up with Ahn. Even though he's just a young boy, he has this sense that he might never become much of a man. But at school, he realizes the rules are different and so are the expectations. At school, Trung has the chance to be something he never seems to be able to be at home a winner.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

I gravitated more towards like the American born kids. And so we only spoke English. I had several friends that commented on the way I said certain things. And I made a conscious effort to fix the way I said those things.

[Jen Miller]

By seventh grade, his Vietnamese accent is gone. He has swapped out the clothes that scream. My mom picked these out for more contemporary attire. He has tried to scrub almost every trace of immigrant kid from his Persona. Next up, popularity.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

All the guys who I thought were cool had a girlfriend in my mind during that time. I was like, oh, she's the prettiest girl in the school. So my goal is to be with her.

[Jen Miller]

Trung gets the girl, he gets the grades. He's making the most of his talents, trying to show his family what he's capable of. Ahn meanwhile stays Ahn.

[Ahn]

I didn't smile a lot. People was like, hey man, why you mugging me? I'm like, oh shoot. I just didn't know how to smile.

[Jen Miller]

Ahn has resting pissed off face, so kids make assumptions about him.

[Ahn]

Within A week someone called me out to fight fights.

[Jen Miller]

Something Ahn's really good at. Winning a fight in the boys bathroom leads to a second fight at the basketball court, followed by a few more scuffles at recess. If Trung is working on ascending the social ladder through assimilation and a get along to go along spirit, Ahn is doing it with his fists. He even befriends a few of the guys he's beaten up. Either way, the twins are definitely on their classmates radar.

[Charles]

And we're like, oh, who are these guys?

[Jen Miller]

Charles is a grade below the twins.

[Charles]

In school, Trung was a lot more quiet and he hung around the girls a lot more. Whereas Ahn would hang out more with the guys and, you know, up to no good.

[Jen Miller]

Charles also likes to be up to no good. So he and Ahn become quick friends.

[Ahn]

I think the first time I got in trouble was me and Charles.

[Charles]

We got caught stealing together.

[Jen Miller]

A trip to Sports Authority, intending to switch their old shoes for new ones.

[Charles]

I didn't realize an was actually trying to shop.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

So he's walking down the aisles, grabbing the shoe, looking at it, put it back down.

[Jen Miller]

When an finally tries to swap his shoes, they're caught and a security guard makes them call their moms. Their families live in the same affordable housing complex. Residents call it checkers.

[Charles]

We'd be in and out, like just stopping by, say hi to the parents, and then just be outside for the rest of the day. We had scooters and BMXs and we

[Jen Miller]

would ride around the friends, pedal the pathways between flowering bushes and patio gardens strung with multicolored prayer flags.

[Charles]

Like inside the buildings, by the pool and all that felt safe, you know,

[Jen Miller]

Checkers isn't a bad place to grow up. But for the twins and their friends, it's also like home base. In a game of tag, they would

[Charles]

say, just walk around the apartment complex. Don't try to cut through the buildings.

[Jen Miller]

The buildings adjacent to checkers. And the reason people would be trying

[Charles]

to jack other people be gang violent. Sometimes you have the rival gangs driving through the neighborhoods.

[Jen Miller]

An knows how to spot them.

[Ahn]

Everyone's dressed in blue. It's like, oh, wow, like they're Crips, you know.

[Jen Miller]

But the closer they get to high school, the more time Ann and Charles spend in the off limits neighborhood. They do so largely under the spell of Charles older brother Vincent. Vincent is tough. Vincent carries a gun. Vincent is full of bravado. Like one time when Vincent confronts a guy who owes him money, basically stripped

[Ahn]

him butt naked, left him on the street, took all that stuff because that dude didn't pay him.

[Jen Miller]

And another time when Vincent takes out his gun to try and scare some

[Ahn]

older guys, he's seen this KFC box on the ground. He just pulled the gun back and shattered the KFC box.

[Jen Miller]

Fast food packaging that happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Vincent is, as an would say, gangster. And Ahn is both intimidated and thrilled. Whether he knows it or not, Ahn is standing on a line that separates the life he's known in Checkers from a far more dangerous life. One that's been in his periphery but is increasingly coming into focus. And chances are, if he crosses that line, his brother, like so many times before, is going to follow. One of Trung's favorite spots near Checkers is the local skate park. During the summer before high school, he's often there practicing tricks alongside an array of other first gen and immigrant kids from the east side. Trung's a skater now. He's got shaggy hair with bangs that brush his eyebrows. And he's wearing skater shoes. Well, sort of. From the flea market, he's procured a pair of cheap vans like slip ons, as well as a super busted pair of actual vans.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

I remember cutting out the label of the vans from the au pair and super gluing it onto the new one. And so after doing that, I had a pair of hands, you know, I felt cool.

[Jen Miller]

Trung loves it at the skate park. The sound of wheels and wood scraping concrete, hip hop blasting the jingle of the Mexican ice cream cart. But he also knows the park can feel precarious. Nortenos, members of a Mexican gang, often hang around and they like to stir things up.

[Trung]

We saw certain groups of people getting picked on. I remember seeing these two skater guys being chased off.

[Jen Miller]

But Trung's not worried. He's here with his brother. And these days, Ahn's dressing like a mini version of Vincent. Walking around in Dickie's pants, white tees and blue sneakers. A little swagger in his step. He's pretty convincing. Trung feels confident that they can hold their own.

[Trung]

Like, we've been trained for taekwondo growing up being black belts. And I think it's just the idea of like, oh yeah, we can defend ourselves.

[Jen Miller]

On this particular day, the boys are practicing their tricks when a couple of Nortegnos approach. The twins brace themselves.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

They had the little homie who was smaller than me came up and punched me in the face.

[Jen Miller]

Then the kid, or maybe his cousin Trung can't quite remember, pulls out a knife. The Whole thing happens so fast. Trung is still reeling from the punch when one of the older guys grabs his skateboard and dumps it into the trash can. Trung now sees what's happening. The Nortegnos are using him to send a message about who's in charge.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Can't do anything about it because all his older homies were standing there. I felt like I had no control. There were so many of them and I really couldn't do anything. I was there to skate.

[Trung]

Why are these people doing this to me?

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

I just. I felt stuck.

[Jen Miller]

Trung feels everyone is staring. The Nortegnos, the other skaters, Ahn and even some of their friends. It's like he's paralyzed by embarrassment, anger and shame. He's done everything his dad wanted. Applied himself in school, perfected his English, learned the wilderness skills, practiced his Taekwondo forms. But when it really matters, what does any of it amount to?

[Trung]

We would spar or compete in Taekwondo. There are rules. There are things that we have to follow. But in real life, there are no rules.

[Jen Miller]

Or maybe it's that his dad's rules don't apply to Trung's world. Not here anyway. Not now. And worse, relying on his dad's rules can actually do harm. They leave you vulnerable. They isolate you. Exactly how Trung felt after he broke his arm. Because even though he's standing right there with Ahn, he can't shake the feeling that Ahn has left him behind. On with his fighting skills. On with Vincent. Trung pulls his skateboard from the trash can and accompanies his brother back to Checkers, fighting tears the whole way.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Because that's kind of how it is, right? I can't show that weakness.

[Jen Miller]

And yet that old pattern is still there. The one established so many years ago.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

I'm the more scared twin. I'm the weaker twin.

[Jen Miller]

A year later, on a summer evening, Trung hops on his bike and heads to a friend's house to try and catch the tail end of a barbecue. He knows that Ahn has been hanging out there all afternoon. He's expecting his 15 year old brother to probably be pretty drunk and maybe a little feisty. But when he gets there, it's even worse than he imagined. When he finally locates his brother, it looks like Ahn has gone three rounds with the Hardy Boys. His eye is swollen shut. His lip is busted open. His cheek is puffy and purple. What the fuck happened? What happened, Trung finds out, is Kevin. Kevin's a year older than the twins. He's 16, Cambodian muscular, tatted he wears expensive clothes and runs in the same circles as Charles older brother Vincent. It wasn't that long ago that Kevin first noticed Ahn.

[Kevin]

There was this Vietnamese guy walking up. He had long slick back. Here I'm talking about to like his shoulders, some blue jeans, keychain hanging, baggy jeans, too. Majority of people that wear that identify with that lifestyle, right? So I was like, who the heck is this? And he threw up a gang sign. It was the letter C. C for Crip.

[Jen Miller]

Though an wasn't actually in a gang I checked on.

[Kevin]

I said, what's this letter for? He said, it stands for Vietnamese. I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I know Vietnamese. Don't start with the letter C. I kind of liked the guy. Like, he was cool. He gave me good vibes, too.

[Jen Miller]

And so now at the barbecue, Kevin decided it was time to give An a chance. He told Ahn he had a proposition.

[Kevin]

Oh, you want to be part of this little clique I'm with?

[Jen Miller]

Ahn had been waiting for this kind of invitation for years. He can't agree fast enough, right?

[Kevin]

When he said, yeah, I just attacked him.

[Jen Miller]

As in jumped him, initiated him. The whole barbecue rushed over to watch

[Kevin]

people try to get involved. I told them, nah, this is part of how we do it. And then boom, boom, boom.

[Jen Miller]

A blow to the eye, another to the cheek. Ahn just has to take it. He's also too drunk to really fight back.

[Kevin]

He got up and I told him, like, you know, you with me now? And he's like, yeah, for sure.

[Jen Miller]

You know, When Trung finds his busted up brother, he takes one look at him and goes into caretaker mode. And he manages to get Ahn back home. He levers him onto the couch and tells him to sleep it off. When Ahn wakes up the next day, he's in pain. A lot of pain.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

I'm like, oh, what happened?

[Ahn]

Why does my face hurt?

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Right?

[Ahn]

My mom was yelling at me, like, look at your face. Look at your face. You know, my eye had. It was bloodshot. My face was still big, purple, right? You know, he punched me really hard. And me and Chung were like, oh, shoot, you blacked out and you woke up a gangster making fun of me. I was like, wait, what?

[Jen Miller]

But it's true. Trung insists you were initiated. You're in. Ahn just grins.

[Ahn]

So I called Kevin. Then later on, like, oh, shoot. Okay, it's official. That's when I started to feel like I'm not a wannabe anymore, right?

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

This is dope.

[Ahn]

This is cool. I'm a gangster now.

[Jen Miller]

But what exactly has Ahn been initiated into? Well, it's a group of four or five high school boys and one girl who are hanging out together. They're breaking into houses and beefing with other cliques. Ahn calls Kevin's group a gang. Kevin disagrees.

[Kevin]

It's more so just like what we would call at the time like a little family. But we just happen to handle every situation that comes our way together. And most of them just happen to be violent. If we call each other family, your enemy is my enemy.

[Jen Miller]

Ahn inherits all of Kevin's current future and past enemies. But an also inherits an older brother figure who takes him cruising around town and on trips to fish for crabs at the beach. And Ahn is loving it. He feels accepted and supported in Kevin's crew, a space that's totally outside his home and family. This is his own thing. And Trung is happy for his brother. But he's also undeniably jealous.

[Trung]

He was able to get ahead and go on his own, make that stride right, Something that we both wanted to be validated.

[Jen Miller]

Ahn is once again first up the tree while Trung stands on the ground in awe, watching his brother make something perilous look so easy.

[Trung]

Hanging out with the older guys caused me to question where we both stand. And now that he he has this new group of older guys, it was like he was leaving me behind.

[Jen Miller]

Trung decides he's not going to let it happen. He's going to catch up with his brother no matter what. A few months later, Trung is walking through the campus of his high school with his shoulders back and his head high. The reason? In the perpetual race to play catch up with his twin, he's made a new friend. A 17 year old we'll call Bobby.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Slick back haircut, like high fade on the side. He was older, seemed like a grown man. True religion, Rockin Republic button up shirts and watches.

[Jen Miller]

If Ahn has Kevin, Trung now has Bobby, the embodiment of, in his eyes, of sophistication. Soon, Bobby has helped Trung start a side hustle selling weed and ecstasy on campus. A gig that has funded a new haircut and wardrobe similar to Bobby's.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Recreating myself into that image automatically, I felt so much pride.

[Jen Miller]

And under Bobby's tutelage, Trung feels emboldened. Like when Bobby starts shit with other teens, something that seems to happen a lot. Trung is always in the mix, pulling his weight in the fight. Of course, sometimes that'll come back to bite you. Which is how one day while he's on his way to phys Ed class, Trung is jumped by a group of kids who are on the other side of a fight that Bobby helped instigate. Before Trung even knows what's going on, he's thrown to the ground and they

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

just stomped me out. They beat me up so bad like luckily I was covering my head because it was all bruised.

[Jen Miller]

His assailants scatter, leaving him curled in pain. Trung is prepared to move on. This is just how things go. But when Ahn learns about what has happened, he's furious.

[Ahn]

He got jumped. It was bad, you know.

[Jen Miller]

Trung may sometimes be a caretaker to Ahn, but Ahn still sees the himself as his brother's physical protector. He was cool with these guys before, but now that they've messed with his brother, he decides that retaliation is necessary. A couple of days later, Ahn and a friend are walking through campus when they see one of the guys who jumped Trump.

[Ahn]

Call him out first, like, hey, what's up? Let's, you know, let's go one on one right now.

[Jen Miller]

The kid doesn't have a weapon, so he pulls out the sharpest object. He's got a pencil. But Ahn's friend, he's got a pipe

[Ahn]

and I grabbed it and just start banging on him. Some of my other friends jumped into. And after that just. It was quick and we ran.

[Jen Miller]

Ahn ends up getting suspended for fighting. And when Trung hears the news, he figures his dad is going to be pissed. But he's wrong.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Instead of like really getting in trouble, my dad praised my brother for protecting me.

[Jen Miller]

Duk is not speaking to Trung directly, but his message is clear.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

I would never be as brave as my brother. That encouraged me to prove to myself and to the universe that I'm not this scared kid.

[Jen Miller]

Prove duck wrong and prove to himself and Ahn and everyone that he is powerful and strong. Power, Trung realizes, is the missing piece. And Bobby is going to show Trung just what power can do. On Black Friday, Trung is sitting shotgun in Bobby's Lexus as they head to one of the biggest malls in the area. And in Trung's pockets, money. Lots of money.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Having that stack in my pocket, it felt. It felt really good.

[Jen Miller]

The mall is packed. They weave through shoppers toward the escalators on the second floor. They walk out onto a bridge that spans the atrium.

[Trung]

That bridge right there opens up to both sides.

[Jen Miller]

Trung looks out as though from a stage at the audience below him. Once they're on their marks, Bobby gives the signal. Trung and the other guys in their group pull the cash from their pockets and throw it in the air.

[Trung]

Toss as high as we can, trying to aim for the ceiling.

[Jen Miller]

And the 1 and $5 bills flutter out like confetti at a parade.

[Trung]

We call it making it rain. And that's exactly what we were trying to do.

[Jen Miller]

What happens next is amazing.

[Trung]

People chasing little kids running over, picking up the money. Even adults all running over. Some people looking and just surprised. So we tossed some more, tossed some more, ran to the other side, tossed some more. And during that moment, all eyes were on us. All the attention was on us.

[Jen Miller]

It's the performance of a lifetime. Trung is shedding the vulnerable parts of himself. The kid who feels invisible, humiliated, powerless.

[Trung]

I get to be someone else for the first time. Like I'm better than you guys now.

[Jen Miller]

He's the one in control. It's like he told everyone to jump and they jumped. And he feels this way, not just because of the money, but because of the other thing in his pocket. A military style switchblade with a camo green handle.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

We weren't scared because, you know, all three of us, we had our knives with us.

[Jen Miller]

Look at us the wrong way and we'll come at you.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Becoming the aggressor in itself was also

[Jen Miller]

intoxicating, which is something Bobby knows very well.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

Besides hanging out with us, he's part

[Jen Miller]

of this organization, a Vietnamese American mafia operating in San Jose and beyond. The organization Bobby works for runs a variety of products. Drugs, guns, gambling machines. If An's mentor Kevin, is like the CEO of his own scrappy startup, then Bobby is like middle management in a multi level marketing firm firm. Although Trung hasn't yet been fully inaugurated into that world, he's sure it's close. Bobby is starting to take him out, introduce him around. And Trung is loving it. The expensive dinners, the bottle service. And he also loves that all these powerful people he's meeting look like him.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

I got to live what I saw in these movies of organized crime, but I was living that the Vietnamese style.

[Jen Miller]

And when Bobby invites Trung to take the next step and attend an official meeting with the leaders of his group, Trung shows up. The event is happening in a banquet hall and Trung takes a seat next to a handful of other teenage recruits at what is effectively the kids table. Everyone is drinking Hennessy out of teacups, laughing and cheersing until one of the big homies stands up and the room Falls silent. He makes eye contact with Trung as he begins to outline his expectations. Trung can practically hear his heart beating.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

It really comes down to if you really want to have what we have, if you want to start enjoying the benefits, you got to put your balls on the line.

[Trung]

Be ready to fight. Be ready to harm.

[Jen Miller]

The expectations outlined at this dinner are not unlike the rules of engagement between the Montagues and the Capulets. You pledge your life to your family. You live and die by their rules. In Shakespeare's world, you're born into this situation. But Trung is being given a choice. To walk away right now or to risk everything for wealth, protection, and power. He listens intently as the big homie continues to explain the terms of the transaction. When you receive a call, you gotta drop everything and be there and not just show up.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

And especially when those things happen, to not be in the background, to be in the forefront, to get ready for battle, whatever that is.

[Jen Miller]

This is what it means to be in a feud between warring houses, to fight for organizations whose grudges are as ancient and futile as whatever it was the Capulets and Montagues were fighting about. But at 15 years old, Trung isn't thinking about any of that. He's thinking only of himself, out there on the front lines, proving his bravery to his father, his brother, to everyone who would push him down or call him weak. The big homie finishes. There's no formal pledge, no raising your right hand. But in his mind, Trung is all in.

[Trung]

I felt very proud.

[Trung (Reflective Voice)]

I felt like, yeah, I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you that I'm going to commit to this.

[Jen Miller]

He leaves the meeting that day feeling like he's finally caught up with Ahn. Like he and his brother are now on equal footing. Each of them proud to be carving out their identities in their separate crews. But Trung can't see the deadly stakes of the identity that he has chosen. How the big homies are a different breed than Kevin's crew. And regardless of which crew either twin has pledged their allegiance to, to, the brothers will still be bound to each other in a way that few people are tied so tightly that if one of them starts to slip, they will both fall.

[Ahn]

He went on the ground, like, immediately, and they just starting hitting him, kicking him.

[Trung]

Just adrenaline running, like, not even feeling the pain. It was just all survival mode. Just keep going, keep going. Like, forcing my legs to keep running.

[Jen Miller]

That's coming up on the next episode of Blood Will Tell.

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[Jen Miller]

Blood will tell is a production of wondery and campside media. This series is reported, written and hosted by me, jen miller for campside media. Our senior producers are lindsay kilbride and ashley ann krigbo. Our producer is annie nguyen. Our story editor is ashley ann krigbaum. Sound design and mix by ewen lai tramuin and mark mcadam fact checking by tracy lee consulting by thomas lu translation by tran vu voice acting by tam duong. For wondery, managing producer is sarah mathes. Leta pandia is senior managing producer senior development editor is rachel b. Doyle. Executive producers are josh dean, vanessa grigoriadis, adam hoff and matt sher. For campside media. Executive producers are n' j', jeri eaton, julia lowery, henderson marshall louie and jen sargent. For wonder.