Review Of The Happiest Refugee By Anh Do

The Happiest Refugee is an autobiography written by Anh Do that explores how an individual’s loved ones and the people around them can enhance or restrict someone’s sense of self. People around us every day help us develop our identities to shape who we become. The Happiest Refugee explores this through family and responsibility.

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Anh Do demonstrates how people around us, especially our friends and family, can help or influence our identity development, this is seen through the concept of family. Anh Do uses sensory imagery, “My mother sank to her knees clutching Khoa and me to her chest and said thank you, God. Parched mouths murmured with excitement tears rolled down dirty cheeks bodies hugged and breathed great sighs of relief.”

It shows the kindness of the family and the positive effect it had on Anh and his gratitude towards others and

Anh Do uses a metaphor, “Even though dad had attempted to clean the room it still had an overpowering stench, the indescribable smell of loneliness.” The metaphor highlights how his father took responsibility for his uncle when he was suffering, setting a good example for Anh and reminding him of the strength we find in family, and how Anh can be influenced by the people around him and how it will affect his identity in his positive way from watching actions around him. Anh also uses a hyperbole, “2k a show.” ‘The event's organizer didn’t even blink.’ Anh took responsibility for his mother and sought out the best for her, even though she said 50 dollars a show would be fine, Anh wanted to give back to his mother for always protecting Anh and his siblings and constantly supporting them as they grew up. It shows how Anh loves his family and took it upon himself to contribute and support them because he knew that they deserved it. It also shows how the mum had a great impact on Anh and his gratitude towards her. Anh finally uses an allusion, “Then one day Mrs. Borny, our English teacher walked in & decided us a bunch of rejects weren’t hopeless and started to run her own drama class.” Mrs Borny took responsibility to make the ‘rejects’ (as Anh had just done an audition kind of thing for Drama class where the teacher was cutting some