“I [...] wore my English like a mask”
English as a global lingua franca transcends geographical, cultural, and socio-political boundaries. While it facilitates the integration process of migrants and the articulation of diverse experiences, English also plays an ambivalent role in hegemonic structures. This article examines the role of English in Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous , focusing on the protagonist, Little Dog, who writes letters in English to his Vietnamese-speaking mother. Drawing on Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, Emily Apter’s notion of the translation zone, and Caroline Levine’s engagement with the affordances of forms, this study explores how the English language affects migrant identity and examines the ambivalent role of translation in this postmigrant bildungsroman . It argues that Vuong’s novel presents the English language itself as a site of ambivalence, in which identity and culture are constantly negotiated through the act of translation.