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Inside Out And Back Again By Thanha Lai

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In the novel Inside Out & Back Again, By Thanha Lai, the main character Ha and her family live in Saigon during the Vietnam war and its described how their lives turned Inside Out & Back Again. During their time in Saigon they are constantly reminded that the war is coming closer and they must leave, And on the journey away from Saigon they experience immense suffering and pain, Finally once they escape and make it to the US they experience pain that comes from racism, and buried emotions that emerge while they try to fit in and not be considered outcast. While Ha and her family are in Saigon everything around them is about the upcoming war and how it's getting closer and must leave, For example “Maybe soldiers will no longer patrol our …show more content…

In the text mother says “ we cannot think of our past, our father, our future, and our friends until we master the English language” When their mother said this it put a huge roadblock surrounding them in a secluded thought train of nothing but learning a very confusing and difficult language and this is not the best mother move because it can cause mental issues with her children because they cannot mourn their father, the loss of their country, the ones they loved and left behind, and this is a real issue because how can she expect her children to not think or say anything about what they suffered through and what they know and what they really feel about speaking about until they master a complicated language that is more than just foreign to them. Furthermore while struggling with their emotion because they cannot think of what is normal for them to think and feel about what they went through Ha struggles with basic communication with her teacher “I tell the teacher my name but she laughs as if I'm telling a joke so I pat my chest to tell her it's my name and I would just wish that she would see the sound of the a making it a deeper sound” Ha is struggling to tell her teacher her name and the teacher is just laughing because she does not understand what Ha is tying to say leaving Ha in a state of seclusion because the person she has to work with everyday can't understand her and just laughs. Additionally when Ha’s family is speaking of their day it is brought up that 1 of them is constantly being called racial slurs “Someone called me a Ching Chong.” so while they struggle to not think about basically anything other than learning english they are constantly being harassed by other bombarding

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