Ha’s Situation and the Vietnam War Ha’s situation relates a lot to the information from the Vietnam War articles. First of all, Ha lived in South Vietnam. This is significant because in the story Ha knew of many refugees, and in the article it said that 1 in every 12 South Vietnam citizens were refugees. There was also a lot of bombing in the war.
During the Vietnam War several Hmong’s relocated to America as political refugees. There was an enormous culture shock from both the Hmong and Americans and misunderstandings due to language barrier. Struggling to adapt to a new society with different norms the Hmong were highly underestimated. The author’s encounter with the Hmong patients were very heart felt, she grew especially close to the Lee family whose daughter had been diagnosed with a disease with radically different meanings for Western physicians. The Hmong had viewed epilepsy as state of being not necessarily psychological defect or even series of events.
In A Viet Cong Memoir, we receive excellent first hands accounts of events that unfolded in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from the author of this autobiography: Truong Nhu Tang. Truong was Vietnamese at heart, growing up in Saigon, but he studied in Paris for a time where he met and learned from the future leader Ho Chi Minh. Truong was able to learn from Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary ideas and gain a great political perspective of the conflicts arising in Vietnam during the war. His autobiography shows the readers the perspective of the average Vietnamese citizen (especially those involved with the NLF) and the attitudes towards war with the United States. In the book, Truong exclaims that although many people may say the Americans never lost on the battlefield in Vietnam — it is irrelevant.
Like many migrants, he has been through many difficult experiences on his journey to a new life in Australia. In his bibliography "The Happiest Refugee", he describes his schooling and educational experiences and his transition from Vietnam, to a new life in Australia. On page 96 of the bibliography, Anh Do talks about his parent’s beliefs and commitments to giving him and his younger brother Khoa a
With unforgiving terrain and the seemingly never ending destruction, the environment of war can be the biggest challenge faced. The constant presence of death and the savage actions of men, the jungle and villages of Vietnam that was home to many families can become a nightmare within days. The book says, “I walked away. People were not supposed to be made like that. People were not supposed to be twisted bone and tubes that popped out at crazy kid’s-toys angles.
There are millions and millions of refugees around the world, but all of their stories might be different. The essay and poem “Letter to a Young Refugee from Another” by Andrew Lam and “Song of P’eng-ya” by Tu Fu tell a story about the author’s experiences as a refugee; the two of them were in slightly different situations. The authors talk about their experiences in their writing, and both have their message to tell the readers. Adam Lam’s essay “Letter to a Young Refugee from Another” is about the author’s experience in a refugee camp at a young age. He also gives us advice on how to survive as a refugee.
The Vietnam War in the late 1970s lead many of refugees including children attempting to attain better living condition relative to those in war-torn Vietnam. Escaping from a war torn nation and arriving to America meant getting accustomed to the much different western culture, while simultaneously facing the challenge of retaining your traditions. Le Thi Diem Thuy presents the story, “The Gangster We Are All Looking For,” to demonstrate her struggle as a migrant. Thuy discusses through her first- hand experiences the arduous struggle that was assimilating into American culture.
She faces racism, discrimination, loneliness, and, over time, a growing sense of love for her new home. Ha’s life is turned “inside out and back again”. Before Ha had to flee Saigon, she was headstrong and selfish, but she was also a girl who loved her mother and couldn't wait to grow up. She wanted to be able to do something before her older brothers did it, and do it better. But most of all, Ha wanted to fit in, to be liked.
Sydney Tech 's English cirriculum is very diverse with books ranging from Shakespeare or how to kill a mockingbird. But it has come to my attention that it is missing something. The board of studies and the Engilsh faculty need the add The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do. Anh Do was a refugee who came to Australia in 1980 from a war torn Vietnam. He suffered in his time grow up in Australia with racial bullying, parental divorce and wealth problems.
Write an essay discussing how memoir conventions are used to explore an issue in the Happiest refugee? The Happiest Refugee, written by Anh Do, is a memoir that explores the experiences of a Vietnamese refugee who fled his homeland with his family and eventually settled in Australia. Throughout the book, Do uses various conventions of the memoir genre to explore the issue of identity, and how his experiences as a refugee have shaped his sense of self.
In the article “Refugees: Who, Where, Why” by Catherine Gervert, she states that “Refugees are people who are forced to flee their homeland because they are afraid to stay”. Ha’s family had to leave behind their friends so they are alone in America. Ha, alike many other refugees, has to experience the loss of friends and loneliness. Refugees, just like Ha in Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, have to go through loneliness before they can stand up for themselves again.
The importance Viet Thanh Nguyen brought into context of the ghost was to feel a sense of understanding of what one faces as a refugee. Refugees are people who have been forced to flee their home, their country for the fear of persecution. Such as the narrator, and her family. The narrator remembers the day like yesterday when traveling the sea by boat when, “my brother took me into the cramped engine room…used his pocketknife to slash my long hair into the short jagged boy’s cut I still wore” (Nguyen
These realizations engrained this memory so vividly in An Tĩnhs mind, hence the extensive detail in the text. In full, her experience in the refugee camp has changed who she is as a person and has become a part of her identity. Although her experiences in Vietnam and Malaysia were grand parts of her identity, the inevitability of losing part of that identity after so long in the west, remained. While dining in a Vietnamese restaurant, the waiter serving her tells her that she is now more American than Vietnamese: “But the young waiter reminded me that I couldn’t have everything, that I no longer had the right to declare I was Vietnamese because I no longer had their fragility, their uncertainty, their fears. And he was right to remind me” (Thúy 78).
The U.S. also spread pro-refugee propaganda sharing imagery of “saving” the Vietnamese. The “operation babylift ” image in lecture 4A, portrays a “rescue” narrative, however, this propaganda was made to cover up the severe refugee situation America had created in Vietnam. This narrative comes in contrast to how the U.S. interfered with the war based on ideology and invested money, weapons, and the lives of many Americans which led created a lot of instability within the country. The war had a severe impact on the people of Vietnam with many civilian deaths, the destruction of livelihoods, and even having children, women, and the elderly fight. Furthermore, as more Vietnamese sought asylum in the U.S., Americans experienced “compassion fatigue” and provided fewer resources for these
They have to deal with losing their loved ones, using their bodies as a form of economic support, and being abused by men at war. Regular civilians had to deal with the loss of family members or friends that went to war. Lan had experienced a lot of loss due to the war. Lan told Kien, “‘What a cruel time… and so very long. The war swept away so many people’” (52).
