The Happiest Refugee

This report was commissioned by The Asian Education Foundation, to analyse the growing number of Asian texts being produced. This report will asses Family life, Resilience and the issue of Racism. Asian tests have had a large increase from the publishing of Anh Do’s autobiography, The Happiest Refugee.

2.0 Representations of growing up Asian in Australia

2.1 Family Life

In the autobiography ‘The Happiest Refugee’, Do has a high regard for his family, that he illustrates throughout the memoir. However, in the prologue, Do expresses a deep hatred for his father. He even attempts to convince himself to kill him as a child. On the other hand, towards the end of the autobiography, Do reconnects with his father and makes him apart of the family,

Do writes with great wisdom and courage, when facing problems throughout his memoir. For example, Do has a comedy gig, and the bouncer doesn 't let him in a first. However Do stands up for himself, saying “You go in and tell the manager that Anh Do, the comedian is here. Tell him to come out and get me. And if he doesn 't come out in five minutes, I 'm going home,” (Pg 213). This indirect quote shows the reader that Do deals with things problematic to him, with a great deal of courage, once again shown when standing up to the bouncer at the gig. Do was very resilient when dealing with his family 's money problems, by not letting his mistakes put him down. By keeping a positive frame of mind, Do kept the reader interested in the text, as he often brought the best out of the worse situations. Mr Borny, Anh Do’s Drama teacher, gave Do one very important compliment, that continues to carry Do today, ‘Anh, you 're a very talented storyteller.’

Do claims that he had not suffered racism once, in his schooling years. This generally puts a smile on the reader 's face as Do was a young vietnamese boy that was completely different to the other children at the school, and those children didn 't bully him for being different. However teachers and opposition team players were sometimes a problem. For example, when Do’s football team went away for a game, some of the opposition football players would make racist comments about his race. Instead of letting these comments bother him he shook it off and went on with his life. This illustrates to the reader Do’s resilience and his courage to turn the other check and be the bigger man.

Page 4

3.0 Summary

Throughout ‘The HAppiest Refugee,’ Anh Do, uses both optimistic and pessimistic language throughout the happy and sad times. Do does this to keep the reader on the edge of his/her seat. However, when Do’s dad begins to spiral, he does the courteous thing and steps up to the plate, hence becoming the man of the family, this warms the reader 's heart as Do never once gives up on his family throughout her autobiography.

4.0 Recommendations

Future authors of Asian Texts, should read Anh Do’s autobiography and scan the words extremely carefully to understand how Do, kept the reader interested in every word he wrote. And put themselves in Do’s shoes, by