Summary Of Stealing Buddha's Dinner

In the memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Nguyen, the main character, Nguyen and her family flee the political unrest of their home country, Vietnam. Seeking a safer community and a more economically-sound life, Nguyen’s family moves to the United States. At this time, the United States was experiencing a large migration of people with Asian descent because of the political unrest in their countries. This sudden increase of Asian immigrants, often referred to as the Third Wave of American Immigration, caused a great amount of resentment towards the Asian. Moving to the United States at such a difficult time, young Nguyen dealt with these issues first-hand. It became very difficult for Nguyen especially because of the very different culture she

At first, Rosa was intolerant towards a religious altar set up in the middle of the living room. Bich’s “father set up the Buddha and ancestor altar not in the living room but in Noi’s room… Buddha’s shift in place was one of many adjustments for [Bich],” Nguyen writes (26). This Buddha and ancestor altar was something that the Nguyen family treasured. Noi would set out fruit daily as an offering to the Buddha. As enticing as the exotic and sweet fruits were, the children were not allowed to eat it; “It was a lesson in patience and desire,” Bich writes (Nguyen 19). The fact that Rosa did not want the family’s altar in the living room along with Bich’s father’s compliance showed the first step of the change in the family. Although Buddhism was deeply rooted into the Nguyen family way of life, moving to the US presented the family with a desire to fit in. As Bich describes a non-related injury, Bich goes on to say, “the scar on my leg remains, barely faded, a reminder of the force with which Crissy and Rosa burst into our lives” (Nguyen 25). At this point in the memoir, Bich does not even know what to think of