Aimee Phan’s book We Should Never Meet, follows the lives of four Amerasian children brought to the US because of the Vietnam War. The book highlights their struggles, achievements, and efforts to become in touch with their Vietnamese background. The book goes shifts from present to past and allows the audience to experience every side of the struggle. From a mother’s point of view, a nun’s point of view, even an adoption helper’s point of view. Kim, Mai, Huan and Vinh all faced everyday struggles of being biracial in the United States. They also struggled eternally with the unknown of their placements in life and how fair or unfair life had done them. Huan and Vinh came to America in different ways but they had one thing in common, the struggle …show more content…
Unlike Vinh and Mai, Huan was an orphan who was a part of Operation Babylift. He is Amerasian. This sets him apart from Kim also because he was taken as a child and adopted by a family right away. Huan is directly introduced in the novel as one of Mai’s friends from school. But then we find out that he is the baby that is given away in the beginning of the book by Lien and his story continues till the end where he visits Vietnam with his adoptive mother. He is said to not have any other Vietnamese friends. We then learn that Huan is half black and half Vietnamese which sets him apart from many Vietnamese people. Huan also was adopted from a wealthy family. He attended Brown University and unlike Mai he did not have to worry about financial aid or money. Huan joked about “still living off his …show more content…
He was able to see his race in a whole new way. Though he did not want to learn anything about his background he was convinced to go to the orphanage where it all began. The Nun who picked him up from the stoop the day his mother left him was still there. She said she remembered him even though he was skeptical about it he took in the information. Although he did complain the whole time and act spoiled he was happy at the end of the trip that he took that journey.
Mai made Huan understand how appreciative he should be. She told him he was not alone. After visiting the orphanage he was left at Huan begins to have a better appreciation for his adoptive mother. He then asks Mai to take a picture of him with his mom’s camera after avoiding pictures the whole trip.
People often say “Home is where the heart is,” and in the case of Huan and Vinh I believe it’s true. They both had similar views on how Vietnam would be. Vinh keeps Vietnam as a good memory of home. He is able to escape reality and envision a happier life if he would of stayed there not knowing the true reality of this fantasy. Huan on the other hand was able to appreciate the home that his adoptive mother had given him. Though they both had different struggles they both had similar hopes to one day find their own homes and build themselves a better life without feeling the emptiness of the
Soon after Papa’s arrest, Mama relocated the family to the Japanese immigrant ghetto on Terminal Island. For Mama this was a comfort in the company of other Japanese but for Jeanne it was a frightening experience. It was the first time she had lived around other people of Japanese heritage and this fear was also reinforced by the threat that her father would sell her to the “Chinaman” if she behaved badly. In this ghetto Jeanne and he ten year old brother were teased and harassed by the other children in their classes because they could not speak Japanese and were already in the second grade. Jeanne and Kiyo had to avoid the other children’s jeers. After living there for two mo...
Pham’s trip however has the opposite effect. He shows us the Vietnamese culture through the eyes of an assimilated Vietnamese American trying to get back in touch with his roots. He hopes to get in touch with his roots mostly through interaction via food. In Pham’s case that’s exactly what he does, with disastrous results bringing to light his inability to...
Fadiman, A. 1997. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Written by Margaret K. Pai, the Dreams of Two Yi-min narrates the story of her Korean American family with the main focus on the life journeys of her father and mother, Do In Kwon and Hee Kyung Lee. Much like the majority of the pre-World War II immigrants, the author’s family is marked and characterized by the common perception of the “typical” Asian immigrant status in the early 20th century: low class, lack of English speaking ability, lack of transferable education and skills, and lack of knowledge on the host society’s mainstream networks and institutions (Zhou and Gatewood 120, Zhou 224). Despite living in a foreign land with countless barriers and lack of capital, Kwon lead his wife and children to assimilate culturally, economically, and structurally through his growing entrepreneurship. Lee, on the other hand, devoted herself not only to her husband’s business but also to the Korean American society. By investing her time in the Korean Methodist Church and the efforts of its associated societies, such as the Methodist Ladies Aid Society and the Youngnam Puin Hoe, Lee made a worthy contribution to the emergence and existence of Hawaii’s Korean American community.
.... In his life the restriction by the whites didn’t stop or discourage him from following his dream, which made him unique and outstanding. He was capable of thinking for himself, even though the whites had tried to “guide” him like the other blacks.
...In the end of the book Kim, Chou, and Loung met up. They decide to look for Meng and Khouy. Meanwhile they find their aunt and uncle. After living with them for a while they find Meng and Khouy. That really shine a light to their drake world. Later on, after settling in with the little family they had left, they decided they had enough money to send two people to America. So Meng, his wife, and Loung go to a refugee camp to get deporter to the states. After a long plane ride they arrive in Vermont. There, Loung becomes a strong motivational speaker, she writes her book and shares her story with millions.
America was not everything the mothers had expected for their daughters. The mothers always wanted to give their daughters the feather to tell of their hardships, but they never could. They wanted to wait until the day that they could speak perfect American English. However, they never learned to speak their language, which prevented them from communicating with their daughters. All the mothers in The Joy Luck Club had so much hope for their daughters in America, but instead their lives ended up mirroring their mother’s life in China. All the relationships had many hardships because of miscommunication from their different cultures. As they grew older the children realized that their ...
Race and ethnicity is a main factor in the way we identify others and ourselves. The real question here is does race/ethnicity still matter in the U.S.? For some groups race is not a factor that affects them greatly and for others it is a constant occurrence in their mind. But how do people of mix race reacts to this concept, do they feel greatly affected by their race? This is the question we will answer throughout the paper. I will first examine the battle of interracial relationship throughout history and explain how the history greatly explains the importance of being multiracial today. This includes the backlash and cruelty towards interracial couple and their multiracial children. Being part of a multiracial group still contains its impact in today’s society; therefore race still remaining to matter to this group in the U.S. People who place themselves in this category are constantly conflicted with more than one cultural backgrounds and often have difficulty to be accepted.
Amy Tan’s “Fish Cheeks” describes Tan’s upbringing as a Chinese-American caught in between two cultures. In “Fish Cheeks” Tan’s crush Robert and his family were invited to Tan’s house for Christmas, Amy was embarrassed of Robert’s impression of her Chinese relatives, cuisine, and culture (Tan 110). Tan’s situation is not uncommon as millions of first generation Americans encounter similar situations while living within two cultures. Albeit the extreme embarrassment Tan endured throughout the encounter, she contends that her mother taught her a valuable lesson in appreciating her Chinese culture (111). Ultimately, Tan's purpose was to implore first generation Americans to embrace both of their cultures, in spite of its unique traditions (Tan
Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War is a contrapuntal reading to American literature on the Vietnam War. But rather than stand in stark contrast to Tim O' Brien's The Things They Carried, The Sorrow of War is strangely similar, yet different at the same time. From a post-colonialist standpoint, one must take in account both works to get an accurate image of the war. The Sorrow of War is an excellent counterpoint because it is truthful. Tim O' Brien writes: ". . . you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil." (O' Brien, 42) Bao Ninh succeeds in this respect. And it was for this reason that the Vietnamese government initially banned The Sorrow of War. A thorough textual and historical examination of both the war and post-war experience of Vietnam reveals that its experience was similar to, if not worse than, that of America.
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
Amy Tan’s ,“Mother Tongue” and Maxine Kingston’s essay, “No Name Woman” represent a balance in cultures when obtaining an identity in American culture. As first generation Chinese-Americans both Tan and Kingston faced many obstacles. Obstacles in language and appearance while balancing two cultures. Overcoming these obstacles that were faced and preserving heritage both women gained an identity as a successful American.
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
The main coping mechanism, then, became suppressing of the memories and emotions attached to the traumas of the Vietnam Wars. Their home served as the host of these demons, but the demons impacted parenting styles. Thi acknowledges that her parents taught her and her siblings many lessons, some intentional but others, quite the contrary. It was the “unintentional ones [that] came from their unexorcised demons and from the habits they formed over so many years of trying to survive;”(“The Best We Could Do,” 295) these lessons were indeed unintentional because just like the suppressed communication, they derived weak communication between the parents and the children. In Min Zhou’s article “Are Asians Becoming ‘White’?” she concludes by including a picture of a Vietnamese family celebrating the 1998 Lunar Year, looking happy. This happy family in the article is much like the Bui family because on the outside, they appeared happy, but inside their home and their hearts, a darkness
As a young Vietnamese-American boy, I have always been curious about my culture and ancestry. My family has gone through a lot of struggles before coming to states, but I never had a history lesson of what their lives were like. Being born in the United States, I didn’t have to experience the hardships that my parents and grandparents had to deal with it. A big part of Vietnamese history is having to deal with the Vietnam War and the impacts of immigration. The Vietnam War took place in 1954 and lasted until 1975. The war grew because of the spread of Communism from North Vietnam to the South. Refugees had to risk losing their family, friends, and their lives in order to have a chance of survival. Vietnam faced many obstacles throughout history