Stealing Buddha's Dinner Essay

In the Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, the author Bich Minh Nguyen recounts her story settling and growing up in America. As an immigrant, she recounts her experience leaving her motherland and arriving to this nation of diversity. Nguyen began to see the “American” ways of life. As because of being considered as the “other” who is living in America, she looks to be a part of this culture by adapting to anything considered American while still maintaining her Vietnamese culture. Throughout the book, she also crosses religious paths especially when encountering America’s prominent faith: Christianity. She’s put at this crossroad to either conform to the standards in order to fit in or to continue on being the outsider. This book reveals the tough

decision of self-identity of an ethnic “other” who is living in America despite declaring “liberty and justice for all” to all its people and religion is used as a one of the many resonating themes of adapting in America.
As Nguyen settled in America, she begins to observe the daily life of the people around her. Through her observation, she noticed that she wasn’t the same in many ways. She saw that everything was different of her identity such as race, color, language, culture, tradition, and religion. She felt like an outsider to these people in America. In order to stop being this alien, she began engaging in American culture by crossing many bridges. For example, Nguyen discovers the kinds of food here in America. Her demand for the junk food is not really a physical craving but was a way to normalize herself along with the American people. As an immigrant, eating these types of food was her desire to be “real”. She didn’t want, what she called, "weirdo" Vietnamese food that was made from ingredients found in the Asian market stores. Instead, she consumed American food such as Pringles, candy bars, Dairy Cones with strawberry dip, and McDonalds. She wants to eat what her white neighbors and schoolmates eat so she can become an American from the inside out.
Though there was this orthodox way, it sort of challenges one of America’s narratives which is “liberty and justice for all.” In America, it is claimed that the country allows anyone to live freely. It gives the right for anyone to practice their religion, to speak any language, and to live their culture. However, in the book, it seems that this value was just a “myth”. The term means stories that are full of symbolic meaning. They are the big stories that communities tell themselves about themselves. It explains who they are, how things began, and why they are the way they are. Livingston’s view of a myth’s motive is that “It serve as the community’s key for its whole life-world, and it can explain the natural order of a community’s institution and behavior.” I believe that it can detail the history of something and that it has meaning shown through symbols. There was this American way of life and if she didn’t have this specific way of life, she wasn’t considered “real”. However, there is no right or real way of American life. A person is not obligated to live a certain lifestyle. One has the right to live their live in whatever way they please but Nguyen did not see that at first. She didn’t see that her Vietnamese culture was acceptable to practice despite being in America.
Just how food played a role in her memoir, so was religion.

It was used as another bridge for her understanding of American culture. With Nguyen being Buddhist, she was exposed to Christianity throughout the region. In America, it was the dominant faith where a majority of people in her community were Christians. Many wouldn’t even befriend her because of her different background. She was told by many that she would go to Hell because she is non-Christian. Although Nguyen is a Buddhist, is was difficult for her to pray in the temple because she felt too American within herself saying, "I felt so out of place - too American, not truly Buddhist - that I never did muster the nerve to enter the prayer room, let alone approach the imposing statue of Buddha." (Nguyen 186). At home she was practicing the Buddhist faith but also attending a Catholic school at the same time. In school, she learned about the Catholic faith and questioned very heavily about the two religions. Since Buddhism was practiced at home, it was pulling her back from obtaining the American identity. Her family kept teaching Nguyen about Buddha, so it became habitual that Buddha was her supreme idol or “God”. Though she desires the American Identity, she decided not to learn about Catholicism. It appears to be that she was now interested in her own religion instead of the American

one.
Throughout her experience, Nguyen begins to question if she would ever be truly American. She wonders if being the mythology of “American” is being this blue eyed, blonde hair, Dutch descendant, Christian worshipping, junk food dieting, and English speaking type of individual. She realizes there is no true definition of being American. It is being able to freely express yourself and your identity. Her memoir is somewhat similar to African American religious mythic narratives. In African history, many were oppressed by slavery and white supremacy. Albert Raboteau, an intellectual and scholar of African and African American History, details his views on narratives believing that it was to make meanings out of mythology. In his book, Fire in the Bones, he details how African Americans formed their secret religion culture called invisible institution, saying “They held their own religious meetings where they interpreted Christianity according to their experience and, conversely, interpreted their experience by means of the myths, stories, and symbols of Christianity” (29). In order to resist and rise from their oppression, many African Americans used counter mythology. For example, they reversed the story in the Book of Exodus. It tells the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery and into the Promised Land of Canaan. For the enslaved, they saw a connection and used this source as hope to liberate themselves from their oppression. They created myths from scriptures as a way to counter the fact they are inferior to the white race and that slavery is not justifiable. Although Nguyen is not countering her oppression with mythology, she is still countering – with reality. She is accepting the fact that there is no actual American identity. She accepts who she is, a Vietnamese-American, and embraces it. She is resisting her oppression of isolation by accepting that she cannot change her identity from the inside out and embraces her heritage.
To conclude, the book gives the reader an understanding of the misconception that others have on America. Though it values “liberty and justice for all” or “right to freedom and religion”, Nguyen gives the actual truth of what it is like as an immigrant living as well as struggling to adjust in America by crossing the bridges of race, culture, language, and religion. It shows the truth of an outsider maintain his or her native values despite living elsewhere.