Bich Minh Nguyen

(8.5)I found this book engaging and refreshing in its depiction of two American born sisters of Vietnamese immigrant parents. There parents sort out other families from Vietnam as they struggled to assimilate and be accepted into american society. There mother Thuong was hardworking and saved a deposit for their first home, their father an engineer found work in brick and tile laying, but dreamed of becoming wealthy through his inventions and devoted much of his time to this.
The two daughters Van and Linny likewise differed in their approach to life. Van, the older, strove and succeeded in her school work, studying to be a lawyer specialising in immigration. Whereas, Van wanting to be accepted by her classmates, lived for her social life and experienced a succession of dead end jobs and relationships. Van marries another law student but cracks soon appear in their relationship. Both are called home when their father finally takes the oath for American citizenship and enters a reality television competition, there mother having died suddenly some years earlier.
The author demonstrates compassion and humour as she portrays the differing perspectives of these first and second generation immigrants struggling to assimilate into a different society.… (mehr)

I liked this biography a lot. It was very interesting - the story of a Vietnamese girl who came to the United States as an infant and throughout her childhood never found herself at home with either being Vietnamese or American. She tells the story through food - the chapters are themes about food and how she relates her love of junk food and American food and how it applies to the emptiness she often feels inside.

I wish the chapters had been more chronological. She was generally chronological, but not always, and she skipped around some as she pursued some of her food themes. She was 10, then she was 8, then she was maybe 11, then back to being 10. I would have liked more linear progression. I wish she had talked more about high school and college. She wraps up quickly after junior high/middle school. I'm also not sure how old she is now or how she currently feels about her life.

Even with that said, this was a very good picture of life for an immigrant in Grand Rapids in the 1980's and also just life in general in the 1980's. It made me think of my own life in the 70's and what I thought of the food my family ate and what other families ate.… (mehr)