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Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora
Cultural Writing. Asian American Studies. In his long-overdue first collection of essays, noted journalist and NPR commentator Andrew Lam explores his life-long struggle for identity as a Viet Kieu, or a Vietnamese national living abroad. At age eleven, Lam, the son of a South Vietnamese general, came to California on the eve of the fall of Saigon to communist forces. He traded his Vietnamese name for a more American one and immersed himself in the allure of the American Dream: something not clearly defined for him or his family. Reflecting on the meanings of the Vietnam War to the Vietnamese people themselves--particularly to those in exile--Lam picks with searing honesty at the roots of his doubleness and his parents' longing for a homeland that no longer exists.
160 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2005
27 people are currently reading
580 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Lam
17 books69 followersAndrew Lamis a writer and an editor with the Pacific News Service, a short story writer, and, for 8 years, a commentator on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” He co-founded New America Media, an association of over 2000 ethnic media organizations in America.
Lam's first short story collection, “Birds of Paradise Lost” was published March 01, 2013 and won a Gold Medal from UC Irvine for contributions to the humanities as well as a Pen/Josephine Miles Literary Award.
His book of essays, "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres" was published in September 2010 and was listed as top 10 Indies of 2010 by Shelf Unbound Magazine. He’s working on a novel.
His book, "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" has recently won the Pen American “Beyond the Margins” Award in 2006, and short-listed for “Asian American Literature Award.”
His essays have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, The LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal, and the Chicago Tribune. He has also written essays for magazines like Mother Jones, The Nation, San Francisco Focus, Proult Journal, In Context, Utne Magazine, California Magazine and many others.
His short stories are also anthologized widely and taught in many Universities and colleges. His short stories appeared in many literary journals, including Manoa Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Nimrod International, Michigan Quarterly West, Zyzzyva, Transfer Magazine, Alsop Review, Terrain, and others.
Lam’s awards include the Society of Professional Journalist “Outstanding Young Journalist Award” (1993) and “Best Commentator” in 2004, The Media Alliance Meritorious awards (1994), The World Affairs Council's Excellence in International Journalism Award (1992), the Rockefeller Fellowship in UCLA (1992), and the Asian American Journalist Association National Award (1993; 1995). He was honored and profiled on KQED television in May 1996 during Asian American heritage month.
Lam was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University during the academic year 2001-02, studying journalism. He lectured widely at many universities and institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Brown, UCLA, USF, UC Berkeley, University of Hawaii, William and Mary, Hong Kong, and Loyola university, and so on.
Lam, who was born in Vietnam and came to the US in 1975 when he was 11 years old, has a Master in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University in creative writing, and a BA degree in biochemistry from UC Berkeley.
A member of Academy of Arts and Science, Lam was featured in the documentary “My Journey Home,” which aired on PBS nationwide on April 7, 2004, where a film crew followed him back to his homeland Vietnam.
Lam's first short story collection, “Birds of Paradise Lost” was published March 01, 2013 and won a Gold Medal from UC Irvine for contributions to the humanities as well as a Pen/Josephine Miles Literary Award.
His book of essays, "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres" was published in September 2010 and was listed as top 10 Indies of 2010 by Shelf Unbound Magazine. He’s working on a novel.
His book, "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" has recently won the Pen American “Beyond the Margins” Award in 2006, and short-listed for “Asian American Literature Award.”
His essays have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, The LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal, and the Chicago Tribune. He has also written essays for magazines like Mother Jones, The Nation, San Francisco Focus, Proult Journal, In Context, Utne Magazine, California Magazine and many others.
His short stories are also anthologized widely and taught in many Universities and colleges. His short stories appeared in many literary journals, including Manoa Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Nimrod International, Michigan Quarterly West, Zyzzyva, Transfer Magazine, Alsop Review, Terrain, and others.
Lam’s awards include the Society of Professional Journalist “Outstanding Young Journalist Award” (1993) and “Best Commentator” in 2004, The Media Alliance Meritorious awards (1994), The World Affairs Council's Excellence in International Journalism Award (1992), the Rockefeller Fellowship in UCLA (1992), and the Asian American Journalist Association National Award (1993; 1995). He was honored and profiled on KQED television in May 1996 during Asian American heritage month.
Lam was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University during the academic year 2001-02, studying journalism. He lectured widely at many universities and institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Brown, UCLA, USF, UC Berkeley, University of Hawaii, William and Mary, Hong Kong, and Loyola university, and so on.
Lam, who was born in Vietnam and came to the US in 1975 when he was 11 years old, has a Master in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University in creative writing, and a BA degree in biochemistry from UC Berkeley.
A member of Academy of Arts and Science, Lam was featured in the documentary “My Journey Home,” which aired on PBS nationwide on April 7, 2004, where a film crew followed him back to his homeland Vietnam.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
December 29, 2010
since i wrote it, i suppose i'm a bit bias. Lol...
July 26, 2008
I said in a previous review that one of the themes of my reading is about what happens when we try to bring gods into concrete human reality. Another theme is about conflicts between modern, post-modern, and traditional in national/cultural communities. A couple years ago, i saw a performance (can't remember the name of the group) about global citizens who were at home everywhere but yet had no home anywhere, who resided in between cultures and places. It was simultaneously lonely and infinitely connected. I related on a certain level.
Authors like Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Andrew Lam write about these experiences--I'd say with a perfect mix of joy, sadness, and a floating tinge of alienation and maybe-not-quote-belongingness. I don't claim that my experiences are similar, but the struggles they write about resonate with some of my own struggles with connection and disconnection from the rural, anabaptist religious culture I grew up out of.
I've heard Andrew Lam speak and write about the Vietnam of his childhood, the Vietnam of Vietnamese expatriate communities in San Jose and elsewhere, and the Vietnam he sees when he returns to visit and write. Lam has an excellent grasp of the complicated emotions and contradictions, the connections and disconnections, the ridiculousness and seriousness of his experiences -- and he writes about it in ways that resonate.
This book surprised me. I wanted to learn more about diasporas, about Vietnam, about emigration and immigration, and I did. But deeper than that, I also learned (to the point of tears) about commonality and resonance along with the difference between my life and Andrew Lam's writing. And that's gifted writing.
Authors like Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Andrew Lam write about these experiences--I'd say with a perfect mix of joy, sadness, and a floating tinge of alienation and maybe-not-quote-belongingness. I don't claim that my experiences are similar, but the struggles they write about resonate with some of my own struggles with connection and disconnection from the rural, anabaptist religious culture I grew up out of.
I've heard Andrew Lam speak and write about the Vietnam of his childhood, the Vietnam of Vietnamese expatriate communities in San Jose and elsewhere, and the Vietnam he sees when he returns to visit and write. Lam has an excellent grasp of the complicated emotions and contradictions, the connections and disconnections, the ridiculousness and seriousness of his experiences -- and he writes about it in ways that resonate.
This book surprised me. I wanted to learn more about diasporas, about Vietnam, about emigration and immigration, and I did. But deeper than that, I also learned (to the point of tears) about commonality and resonance along with the difference between my life and Andrew Lam's writing. And that's gifted writing.
December 31, 2012
I'm officially in love with Andrew Lam's words. In this memoir, Lam's exquisite way of navigating worlds as the global villager, from San Francisco to Paris to Hanoi and back to childhood Dalat, is parceled into the finest of lines and paragraphs. That he becomes public in English, a third language, French and Vietnamese his first languages, is phenomenal. The hard edges of truths and realizations are blurred only by Lam's lyrical abilities, which allow him and us to peer more deeply into the life of the child and the eventual man, before and since the fall of Saigon.
June 23, 2008
this book exceeded my expectations in retelling the stories of vietnamese diaspora. i gave 4 stars instead of 5 stars because the book is a collection of essays, and since each is written with the author's background, repeated several times, i now remember he's left vietnam in a cargo plane to guam on 4/28/1975.
it is also notable that the author writes well, at times reflecting poetry, wit and humor.
it is also notable that the author writes well, at times reflecting poetry, wit and humor.
April 24, 2017
As the son of a vietnamese refugee in France, the topic of this book was obviously appealing to me, though it focuses more on the vietnamese diaspora in the USA. Literature about the aftermaths of the Vietnam War for the southern (losing) side remains scarce and so far I know, the authors generally speaking from an american or north-vietnamese/communist narrative.
I do no think, that a similar book has ever been written about the vietnamese diaspora in France (though France is, if I am not wrong, hosting the second largest vietnamese community in the West, after America) and it was therefore even more relevant for me to read this book, to be able to compare with my own experience both diasporas. Though, the two of them find their roots in the defeated south vietnamese republic, their natures remain different, due among other things to the different paradigmas of both host countries (american "communautarism" vs french "assimilationism"), but also to the fact that unlike the USA, France did not host as much veterans of south vietnamese army, but rather people from the civil society. Some also say, that the presence of a strong communist party in France prevented the formation of an organized south vietnamese front against Hanoi's regime.
To the book itself, it was a pleasant reading: quite short, but well structured, though I do not necessarly share the views of Andrew Lam about identities (I am far from being a "cosmopolitan"). This last point, however, does not constitute the core of the book and I rather focused on similar experiences (the "loser" narrative, family members living in the past and dreaming of a country that does not exist anymore, the struggle to make oneself a place in the host country, the traumas of war and exile), but also on differences (for example the strong desire of revenge of vietnamese-americans is not as widely spread or not as expressed by french vietnameses, or the rejection for the host country, similar to the one of Andrew Lam's father, hardly exist, french society being quite demanding for assimilation, or the absence in America of this schism between the first wave of vietnamese immigrants in 1954 who chose France at the end of the colonial time in the one hand, and the second wave after 1975 and the fall of the South, both generations facing mutual misunderstandings or even sometimes mutual disdain).
For some reasons, I found this book to be a very additional lecture to two other books:
1) "Vietnam: A portrait of its people at war" from David Chanoff, that also deals with the aftermaths of the vietnamese civil war (and not only with memories from the battlefields), seen from the "winning side" (Northern Vietnamese and southern communists).
2) "Vietnam: Rising Dragon" by Bill Hayton, since Andrew Lam approaches in one of the last chapters modern Vietnam, a new society, a new generation and different problems, far from those, our parents, citizen of the former South Vietnamese Republic experienced, but also way different from the western vision of Vietnam, made either of war images or idealized as a traditional and rustic asian society. The book from Hayton will go further in details on this topic and depict you a portrait of modern Vietnam.
I do no think, that a similar book has ever been written about the vietnamese diaspora in France (though France is, if I am not wrong, hosting the second largest vietnamese community in the West, after America) and it was therefore even more relevant for me to read this book, to be able to compare with my own experience both diasporas. Though, the two of them find their roots in the defeated south vietnamese republic, their natures remain different, due among other things to the different paradigmas of both host countries (american "communautarism" vs french "assimilationism"), but also to the fact that unlike the USA, France did not host as much veterans of south vietnamese army, but rather people from the civil society. Some also say, that the presence of a strong communist party in France prevented the formation of an organized south vietnamese front against Hanoi's regime.
To the book itself, it was a pleasant reading: quite short, but well structured, though I do not necessarly share the views of Andrew Lam about identities (I am far from being a "cosmopolitan"). This last point, however, does not constitute the core of the book and I rather focused on similar experiences (the "loser" narrative, family members living in the past and dreaming of a country that does not exist anymore, the struggle to make oneself a place in the host country, the traumas of war and exile), but also on differences (for example the strong desire of revenge of vietnamese-americans is not as widely spread or not as expressed by french vietnameses, or the rejection for the host country, similar to the one of Andrew Lam's father, hardly exist, french society being quite demanding for assimilation, or the absence in America of this schism between the first wave of vietnamese immigrants in 1954 who chose France at the end of the colonial time in the one hand, and the second wave after 1975 and the fall of the South, both generations facing mutual misunderstandings or even sometimes mutual disdain).
For some reasons, I found this book to be a very additional lecture to two other books:
1) "Vietnam: A portrait of its people at war" from David Chanoff, that also deals with the aftermaths of the vietnamese civil war (and not only with memories from the battlefields), seen from the "winning side" (Northern Vietnamese and southern communists).
2) "Vietnam: Rising Dragon" by Bill Hayton, since Andrew Lam approaches in one of the last chapters modern Vietnam, a new society, a new generation and different problems, far from those, our parents, citizen of the former South Vietnamese Republic experienced, but also way different from the western vision of Vietnam, made either of war images or idealized as a traditional and rustic asian society. The book from Hayton will go further in details on this topic and depict you a portrait of modern Vietnam.
October 22, 2017
I was adopted from Vietnam when I was just a baby, so I don't have a real connection with my birth country. Yes, I want to return to see where I was born, but my Vietnamese experiences are different from those of the author's and of the people he interviews in a number of his stories. That doesn't mean that I found the book irrelevant to my life. Rather the book allowed me an insight into the experiences of Vietnamese people both from that complicated country and those born here of parents who had to flee the Communists.
In beautifully written language, Andrew Lam describes the life he led in Vietnam as a young boy and his other life as a kid growing up in the Bay Area of California. Each story is connected but separate, but the reader gets a full picture of life for many Vietnamese refugees both here and abroad. I was completely heartbroken while reading his story of refugees trapped in holding camps and their desire to be granted asylum. While this story was written quite a number of years ago, it really mirrors what is happening in this country right now.
I really loved reading this short book. It let me see a world I'm from but I'm not from. I would love to sit down with Andrew Lam and just talk about his experiences and gain more insight into this book.
In beautifully written language, Andrew Lam describes the life he led in Vietnam as a young boy and his other life as a kid growing up in the Bay Area of California. Each story is connected but separate, but the reader gets a full picture of life for many Vietnamese refugees both here and abroad. I was completely heartbroken while reading his story of refugees trapped in holding camps and their desire to be granted asylum. While this story was written quite a number of years ago, it really mirrors what is happening in this country right now.
I really loved reading this short book. It let me see a world I'm from but I'm not from. I would love to sit down with Andrew Lam and just talk about his experiences and gain more insight into this book.
January 10, 2010
HEARTFELT
Lam's writing is deeply moving. Going beneath an often impenetrable silence Lam reincarnates with passion, not only for himself and his family, but for many others as well, what it `feels' like to be an immigrant in America from Vietnam.
The stories are touching and genuine; the burning of the family memoirs and photos... painful. Trying to assimilate in American culture by telling wartime stories to assume popularity with classmates...tear-jerking, along with his first act of betrayal asking his brother, "Are you sure that's what you want me to say?" ...I had to laugh here however... reminded me so much of something I would have done/asked. And then the others; the Nguyen brothers, the long tearful flux of stories pouring from the detention center in Hong Kong, and his grandmother in the convalescent home... loved her however.
Tremendous & heartfelt writing. And indebted to the passage,' "Home is portable if one is in commune with one's soul. ...For mine is a landscape where Saigon, New York, and Paris intersect, where the Perfume River of Hue flows under the Golden Gate Bridge." Astonishing. Outstanding!
Lam's writing is deeply moving. Going beneath an often impenetrable silence Lam reincarnates with passion, not only for himself and his family, but for many others as well, what it `feels' like to be an immigrant in America from Vietnam.
The stories are touching and genuine; the burning of the family memoirs and photos... painful. Trying to assimilate in American culture by telling wartime stories to assume popularity with classmates...tear-jerking, along with his first act of betrayal asking his brother, "Are you sure that's what you want me to say?" ...I had to laugh here however... reminded me so much of something I would have done/asked. And then the others; the Nguyen brothers, the long tearful flux of stories pouring from the detention center in Hong Kong, and his grandmother in the convalescent home... loved her however.
Tremendous & heartfelt writing. And indebted to the passage,' "Home is portable if one is in commune with one's soul. ...For mine is a landscape where Saigon, New York, and Paris intersect, where the Perfume River of Hue flows under the Golden Gate Bridge." Astonishing. Outstanding!
May 26, 2018
I am not an impartial judge of this one, because it brought back so many memories of my time spent with Laotian immigrants. There are differences, but it doesn't changes some powerful similarities that have all of my emotions stirred.
That being said, I am still pretty sure that it is well-written. Some of the essays are quite long and others are short, but they are written with insight and sensitivity and occasionally humor, despite still often being emotionally devastating.
That being said, I am still pretty sure that it is well-written. Some of the essays are quite long and others are short, but they are written with insight and sensitivity and occasionally humor, despite still often being emotionally devastating.
February 24, 2008
This is a book any Vietnamese first generation child should read. This book illuminated a lot for me about my parents and the culture they were raised in. It also gave me a sense of relief that there were other Vietnamese Americans growing up to be artists and creative persons. I could very much relate to what he was talking about.
February 8, 2016
When I read Perfume Dreams I got the sense that Lam wrote all these articles at different times, and independently, later gathering them into a book. Read together the articles are a bit redundant, although each article does have something unique to it.
The writing style isn't really my cup of tea but he does do beautiful things with language.
The writing style isn't really my cup of tea but he does do beautiful things with language.
February 18, 2011
Read it for an anthropology class, and I actually liked it. If you want to understand the Vietnamese diaspora and the 1.5 generation, I highly recommend this book.
January 27, 2016
Worth the read, but I got 100x more from Catfish and Mandala.
March 16, 2014
Reading Lam's essays/stories gave me an important and incredible glimpse into another war refugee's experiences and thoughts on life and death. Being adopted from Vietnam as an infant, on paper, I'm part of the diaspora that came forth from the end of the Vietnam/American War. However, due to my age and circumstances, I have no recollection of my few months living in South Vietnam and no blood relations to tell me stories about the old country. The essays presented in Perfume Dreams made me reflect on what it might have, or could have, been like if I had left the country at an older age and with blood relatives.
I think the book is mainly a testament to the author's transformation from a rigid upbringing and deeply embedded cultural expectations into a world traveler and respected journalist. Each essay in the collection attempts to bring about a balance of subjective and objective points of view, and deftly comes to terms with ever-present nostalgia and modern reality.
In the future, I'm sure it'll be a pleasure to read his other two books that have been published since Perfume Dreams.
I think the book is mainly a testament to the author's transformation from a rigid upbringing and deeply embedded cultural expectations into a world traveler and respected journalist. Each essay in the collection attempts to bring about a balance of subjective and objective points of view, and deftly comes to terms with ever-present nostalgia and modern reality.
In the future, I'm sure it'll be a pleasure to read his other two books that have been published since Perfume Dreams.
July 25, 2008
Initially, this book was too slow for but as time progressed I began to really enjoy the writing. Using simplistic language, the author describes what goes through the mind of a child going through a war escaping and growing up in America. His juxtaposed experiences tell a story of person that has truly lived different lives.
I especially enjoyed the portions of the book in which the author describes how different this modern world is compared to the life his parents led in Vietnam. His father, a loyal high ranking official in the Vietnamese army became a shadow of his former self becoming an unemployed drunkard in America. All hope was lost on him but he endured and was able to develop an identity away from war in order to support his family.
However, this is a short read with a lot of history to tell so this was just more or less just a glance of the author's experiences in Vietnam. Still, it does tell a lot in its pages.
I especially enjoyed the portions of the book in which the author describes how different this modern world is compared to the life his parents led in Vietnam. His father, a loyal high ranking official in the Vietnamese army became a shadow of his former self becoming an unemployed drunkard in America. All hope was lost on him but he endured and was able to develop an identity away from war in order to support his family.
However, this is a short read with a lot of history to tell so this was just more or less just a glance of the author's experiences in Vietnam. Still, it does tell a lot in its pages.
March 27, 2015
"The greatest phenomenon in this century, I am convinced, has little to do with the world wars but with the dispossessed they sent fleeing; the Cold War and its aftermath has given birth to a race of children born "elsewhere," of transnationals whose memories are layered and whose biographies transgress national boundaries." In richly evocative language, Lam describes his own experience and that of other Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans since the war whose location is the sum of what most Americans know of that land. I read the book to increase my understanding of the community in which I work. Though much remains to be learned, Lam's essays give me the feel of his experiences, a sense of place with its sights and scents, sensations and emotions, of its traditions and now rapidly changing culture.
June 27, 2008
Of course, this subject interests me very much. The Vietnamese diaspora...........love that word! Somewhat similar to Andrew Lam's, Catfish and Mandala, as a bittersweet remembrance of the early years in So. Vietnam and the flight to the confusing world of America. Worth a look for sure
September 6, 2012
Thank you for the insider look on being Vietnamese American and leaving Vietnam. I think I have a better, more compassionate understanding of the complexities, if not the language. I think I need to brush up on the historical context. Maybe read Takaki's chapter on refugees from SE Asia. In all seriousness, I ate a lot of Buckeye Pho and watched a lot of Vietnamese music videos while finishing this book.
September 25, 2007
I'm afraid this is one of those books I read to make myself look intelligent. It's fascinating, heartbreaking, lovely, fierce, lonely. New eyes on what it means to be an American. A difficult read, emotionally and intellectually.
November 19, 2007
My mother suffered many of the same experiences as the author, though she came from the Ukraine after WWII. Still, I wasn't as overwhelmed as some reviewers. The stories are often heart rending, but too much of the same thing. The Whitehead chapter was good.
April 26, 2011
Lam arrived in the USA as a child refugee of the Vietnam War. This book is a collection of essays in which he reflects on his memories of Vietnam, the war, and coming to the United States. It's well-written, engaging, and, ultimately, very uplifting.
July 10, 2015
This book is excellent. Andrew Lam makes you feel simultaneously soaring above the glittering streaks of the ocean and shuffling through the dirt of a refugee camp -- it's the before and after of becoming an immigrant. He bottled the diasporic essence and spilled it across these pages.
February 9, 2017
A collection of essays relating to the Vietnamese-American experience, this book is well-written but I found the structure (or lack of) not very conducive for creating a big picture. A little fractured, maybe that was the intent though.
April 16, 2011
This is a nice story about Andrew's experience fleeing Vietnam at the end of the war and his experiences as a foreigner is California.
August 22, 2012
Another wonderful book that fed my fascination with Vietnam, as well as the Vietnamese American experience.
September 20, 2014
Brilliant author
May 24, 2015
Some of the essays, especially early in the book, are very poignant and provide clarity on the Vietnamese diaspora. I was less interested in many in the middle, but it got good again at the end.
May 10, 2021
This book of essays is an incredible reminder of a time most Americans might like to erase from our history. Perhaps some Americans have erased America’s war in Vietnam and its repercussions from their minds. The images of helicopters rising above Saigon with fleeing Vietnamese frantically hanging from the landing skids have faded from our collective memory. That was then, nearly 40 years ago. But the refugees are with us still. For the most part, Vietnamese refugees seemed to make the difficult transition to American citizenship seamlessly. Their progeny has blended into the American fabric, most excelling academically and professionally. But at what price to the hearts and souls of the new citizens?
Lam’s family arrived in America in the first wave of refugees. He and his brother were young enough to transition and adapt. The changes were more complex and difficult for his middle-aged parents. The next wave of refugees, the boat people, had an even more difficult entry into a country that was feeling compassion fatigue. For some the price of entry to the Promised Land could come down to a bag of carefully washed American bones carried in a canvas bag. Lam’s essays provide a tender glimpse into the complex compromises and adaptations required to leave behind the mother country and adopt a new country. His introspection is sometimes harsh and always difficult. How does the once honored general of the defeated army square his new impoverished and under-appreciated existence with his old identity? How do refugees cope with survivor’s guilt and mixed loyalties? How do grandparents navigate the perplexing American fixation on birth dates with the Vietnamese cultural reverence for death? And how does it feel to have one foot in America and one foot in Vietnam? To be neither wholly this or wholly that?
This is not a new release, but it remains an important reminder of a stain on American history that is perhaps as egregious as the stain of slavery. It is a stark reminder of how remaining South Vietnamese were brutalized after we left them to the communist regime. One essay illuminates the deplorable involuntary repatriation of live refugees and “voluntary” repatriation of dead bodies after western countries had their fill of boat people. Most important, the book is a reminder of all that it takes to leave everything behind and start a new life in a strange new culture.
Lam’s family arrived in America in the first wave of refugees. He and his brother were young enough to transition and adapt. The changes were more complex and difficult for his middle-aged parents. The next wave of refugees, the boat people, had an even more difficult entry into a country that was feeling compassion fatigue. For some the price of entry to the Promised Land could come down to a bag of carefully washed American bones carried in a canvas bag. Lam’s essays provide a tender glimpse into the complex compromises and adaptations required to leave behind the mother country and adopt a new country. His introspection is sometimes harsh and always difficult. How does the once honored general of the defeated army square his new impoverished and under-appreciated existence with his old identity? How do refugees cope with survivor’s guilt and mixed loyalties? How do grandparents navigate the perplexing American fixation on birth dates with the Vietnamese cultural reverence for death? And how does it feel to have one foot in America and one foot in Vietnam? To be neither wholly this or wholly that?
This is not a new release, but it remains an important reminder of a stain on American history that is perhaps as egregious as the stain of slavery. It is a stark reminder of how remaining South Vietnamese were brutalized after we left them to the communist regime. One essay illuminates the deplorable involuntary repatriation of live refugees and “voluntary” repatriation of dead bodies after western countries had their fill of boat people. Most important, the book is a reminder of all that it takes to leave everything behind and start a new life in a strange new culture.
June 13, 2021
It took a while but I made it!
A collection of essays on being a member of the extensive Vietnamese diaspora and the complicated emotions that accompany it. Lam writes emotively but simply, and I related to a lot of the content despite it being 20+ years old. The stories that resonated with me the most were The Stories They Carried (how the UNHCR’s 1993 distinction between political and economic refugees to “solve” the southeast Asian refugee crisis wreaked havoc on the Vietnamese detainees stuck in between) and Love, Money, Prison, Sin, Revenge (Vietnamese refugees caught up in crime and at risk for deportation; how displaced Vietnamese deal with their sense of loss in a new world).
What I will note, though, is that Lam’s experience is different from that of many Viet refugees—his father was a celebrated general so he grew up well-nourished even for Vietnamese wartime standards, and he came with the first wave of immigrants, who were associates of the American forces, so more educated and well-off, having the social capital to start over with more ease. Not at all to say that his family didn’t struggle, which they did. It’s just different from the second and third waves, during which many in the Vietnamese American community arrived.
A collection of essays on being a member of the extensive Vietnamese diaspora and the complicated emotions that accompany it. Lam writes emotively but simply, and I related to a lot of the content despite it being 20+ years old. The stories that resonated with me the most were The Stories They Carried (how the UNHCR’s 1993 distinction between political and economic refugees to “solve” the southeast Asian refugee crisis wreaked havoc on the Vietnamese detainees stuck in between) and Love, Money, Prison, Sin, Revenge (Vietnamese refugees caught up in crime and at risk for deportation; how displaced Vietnamese deal with their sense of loss in a new world).
What I will note, though, is that Lam’s experience is different from that of many Viet refugees—his father was a celebrated general so he grew up well-nourished even for Vietnamese wartime standards, and he came with the first wave of immigrants, who were associates of the American forces, so more educated and well-off, having the social capital to start over with more ease. Not at all to say that his family didn’t struggle, which they did. It’s just different from the second and third waves, during which many in the Vietnamese American community arrived.
February 25, 2022
I knew almost nothing about the Vietnamese diaspora, and nothing at all about the boat people who, having fled as far as Hong Kong, were imprisoned, suffered cruelly, and then - horrible to consider - were forcibly returned to a communist Vietnam.
I read this to learn more about the experience of Vietnamese immigrants to the USA. Also, I knew that as a third culture kid I would partially relate to this experience, and I did indeed find many passages that rang true.
"Home forever lost is forever bathed in a certain twilight glow."
"Home is portable if one is in commune with one’s soul."
"The immigrant child, wanting the larger world, shunning the old ways, inexorably breaks his parents’ hearts."
"Democracy, on the other hand, can only flourish when opposite ideas are not only encouraged but respected."
I read this to learn more about the experience of Vietnamese immigrants to the USA. Also, I knew that as a third culture kid I would partially relate to this experience, and I did indeed find many passages that rang true.
"Home forever lost is forever bathed in a certain twilight glow."
"Home is portable if one is in commune with one’s soul."
"The immigrant child, wanting the larger world, shunning the old ways, inexorably breaks his parents’ hearts."
"Democracy, on the other hand, can only flourish when opposite ideas are not only encouraged but respected."
May 10, 2020
The more mature response to one's tragedy is not hatred nor resentment but spiritual resilience with which one can, again and again, struggle to transcend one's own biographical limitations. History is trapped in me, indeed, but history is also mine to work out, to disseminate, to discern and appropriate, and to finally transform into aesthetic self-expression.
Really loved this set of essays on the Vietnamese diaspora. Andrew Lam writes with a deep understanding of himself and the journey he is taking to get there, touching on legacies of war, older generation Vietnamese refugees trapped in history, memories easily erased within capitalist America, and the dual lives of Vietnamese American children.
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