1. Migration
Push Factors: Pull Factors:
-Communist regime -Promises of happiness
-Disparity of living situation
-Intruder, Insecurity of home -Father’s obsession of
migration to U.S.
-Father couldn’t be a Physician
2. Attempts of Migration
Entire family stood in the rain for 8 days awaiting for
strangers.
Multiple trips to Saigon and back, failures each time
Father and Samantha went to Saigon, he abandoned
her. Resentment, further problems
Boat trip, ran out of gas, returned
Though confirmation of migration to U.S. was
confirmed, Father made consistent trips to U.S.
Embassy
6 months later, Bangkok San Francisco
3. Refugee Experience
Discrimination, racism, ridicule
Loneliness, Isolation
Generational Gaps
No sense of Home
Difficulty Assimilating
Independence
4. Discrimination
"Everyday someone made it a point to laugh at my
clothes, my skin, my hair, and my accent. Everyone
seemed tireless in their pursuit to ridicule me and
made me feel ridiculous for simply existing." p. 147
"For the first time in my life, I understood the
strength of racial solidarity. My idealistic view of a
harmonious world began to slowly chip away as I
started to realize that we were not all equally free and
that we couldn't all get along." p. 153
5. Socioeconomic Status
"The corners were littered with drugged-out parents,
dirty children with even dirtier language, and other
newly immigrated people on welfare like us." p. 151
“Outside forces were not the only contributing factor
to my misery. My parents were arguing all the time.
Father was always home because he couldn’t find a
job.” p. 149
“Father didn’t want to appear poor any longer, so he
bought a brand new car with our welfare checks.” 154
6. Loneliness, Isolation
“She gave me no warning, no advice on how
to survive a life under the swollen and battered
pride of Father´s fists and accusations.¨ p. 176
"Somehow my existence was linked to what
Mother had done. Without her there, he only
had me to punish... I began to disrespect the
hypocrisies of his nature." p.180
¨It would be so much easier if I could just die.¨
p. 192
7. Generational Gaps
¨Father´s heart, which used to inspire me, was
now intolerant and couldn´t even inspire itself.
It only beat because it could, not because it
knew how to love. I felt sad for him, especially
at that point when old world traditions and
new world values had come into conflict and
severed all ties between us.¨p.216
8. No sense of Home
¨Yet I continued to feel strangely disconnected from
this land, [America] moving from one rented
apartment to another, unable to find a place to call
home. Sadly, as the seasons became years, even the
home I left behind began to feel foreign and distant
inside my memories.” p. 7
“Though it has been over thirty years, I have never
been back to visit…I’m also fearful that going back
would somehow taint the image I have of my
childhood.” p. 7
9. Difficulty Assimilating
"Since arriving in this country, I always had to straddle two
different worlds, each filled with its own secrecies and
pretenses. The traditions of family and culture versus the
liberating freedom that came with individuality constantly
threatened to collide with one another... In one I lived with my
head bowed under Father's rules and regulations. In the other, I
made enormous sacrifices to make sure that I was always in
control of everything." p. 181
"the move was the beginning of a life of impermanence for
me, one with temporary homes, temporary things, temporary
friends, temporary faces, and a temporary family" (p. 154)
10. Independence from Father
Father helped me figure out who I really was.
Because of what I had to do to survive at
home, I grew the strength needed to stand up
for myself and to be unapologetically me,
despite all the outside pressures from peer
groups.” p.198
“My right hand raised itself in self-defense,
not to protect face, but with the clear intention
of striking back at the face in front of me.’
p.216
11. Independence from Isolation
“April found me a job at a Vietnamese printing place
that her friends own…They let me work even though
I’m underage.” p. 172
“I went to school, went to practice for whatever team
sport I happened to be playing that season, went to
work, and returned straight home for chores. I played
sports and joined clubs in order to get into a good
university and I worked so I could afford it.” p. 209
12. Identity
In Vietnam as higher class
In Vietnam during loss of status
In the United States
13. Upper Class Vietnam
"Do you know what your name means? Do you think
you're a princess?...." p. 33
"Every time Father tried to connect with us, it tugged
my heart. I was certain that no one understood him
like me.” p. 44
“Mother grew up as the eldest in a wealthy
household. She wore the most fashionable clothes
from Paris. She lived in a mansion, went to a French
school, and spent summers away at exotic beach
houses.” p.65
14. Loss of Status in Vietnam
"I wished that I could be the son that he
wanted, so he wouldn't feel so alone in trying
to protect our home" p. 59
