Salted Plums: A Memoir of Culture and Identity

by Alison Hồng Nguyễn Lihalakha

Salted Plums is a moving coming-of-age tale for anyone who has ever felt as if they don’t belong.

Alison Hồng Nguyễn Lihalakha was just a small child when her family fled Việt Nam during the fall of Sài Gòn. From a refugee camp in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, Alison’s family settled in Panama City, Florida, where her father worked as a fisherman until his sudden death. Left to raise seven kids on her own, Alison’s mother moved the family to Kansas to be near relatives. There, Alison found herself torn between her dual identities as both an immigrant and an American kid. She felt suffocated under her mother’s strict expectations and began to reject anything Vietnamese. Quickly recognizing the disparity between her own home and the ones her mother cleaned for a living, Alison vowed to climb her way out of poverty and leave the life of an immigrant behind.

Daydreaming of grilled cheese sandwiches and faraway places, Alison initially failed to recognize the many sacrifices her parents made to build a life in America. But as she moved through her journey of self-discovery, eventually going off to college and forging her own future, Alison came to find happiness and self-acceptance in the foods and traditions she had suppressed in her youth—and in the shared kinship, from triumphs to tragedies, that bonds immigrants and refugees together.

In the tradition of coming-of-age memoirs such as Sigh, Gone and Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, Salted Plums explores the nuances of race and culture for a young immigrant girl growing up while caught between two worlds.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

217 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 2, 2022

Reviews

[Reading_ Tamishly · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those amazing memoirs which reads like a perfect fictional book because it's written in such a manner that will make you want you to learn more about the one who are reading about until the author stops at the last page. And it's still not enough!

This book will possibly wake up the travel spirit in you and guide you to make you want to travel there someday soon. Or know someone from there. And here's the book for that.

The author effortlessly (seems so effortless to us readers while you must have put in lots) pens down her experiences until now; the several places she has travelled and the different people she has met. The highlights would be the honest portrayal of her personal stories regarding her childhood, her family and ultimately the dilemma of identity of being an immigrant living in America.

Some parts took me by surprise and really got me thinking how fortunate some of us really are.

You will get glimpses of tradition and culture of Vietnam throughout the memoir.

A different read which delivers more than what it promises.

Thank you, Kahana Press, for the advance review copy.

[Nicki Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not usually a big reader of memoirs, but Salted Plums interested me partly because I did not know a lot about Vietnam (apart from some food) and I had not yet read a book by a Vietnamese author for my Around the World reading challenge. In the end I found it a pleasing and interesting read, and I finished it over two nights. Alison's story was compelling, and I was fascinated to learn more about her experiences in growing up in the US as an immigrant. She tells the story with warmth and humour, but also with honesty and emotional depth. I recommend it for those who enjoy memoirs from recent history and for those who are interested to know more about the experiences of immigrants. It gets four stars from me.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

From broad strokes to five-sense specificities, this author invites readers to walk her journey as she goes through the story as it has been told to her - from Vietnam in an orderly fashion to settle and try to figure out life as one embracing a new culture while honoring and carrying on her native traditions. However, not all is as it seems, and as she fights racism and the demands of adjusting to American life, she finds troubling inconsistencies in her own upbringing and family ways that she challenges when she recognizes them.

I found this to be an inspiring memoir with universal truths for all of us whose parents and grandparents wanted native customs honored, family icons passed down through the generations, but never told truths closest to the transitioning generation, including the very languages, beliefs and political leanings that motivated the migrations they made. . . .all to be discovered by the curious research of those who look back and wonder. It takes time and effort - and much needs to happen before the last of those generations die - to peel back the layers of half-truths that are our family stories.

We all stand upon the shoulders of those who came before us. . . it is always uplifting to uncover their real stories and sacrifices. Salted Plums is one of those.

A Sincere Thank You to Alison Hồng Nguyễn Lihalakha, Kahana Press and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review. #SaltedPlums #NetGalley

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Kahana Press for an advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

A memoir of a Vietnamese American woman and her journey through seeking refuge in the USA at a young age, coming to terms with her identity, and becoming who she is today: it was beautiful. I love a memoir that makes me feel like a friend to the author - as thought they're telling me stories over coffee. This was exactly that, and it is a memoir that more people need to read, especially those struggling to understand what it can feel like to be identified as culturally different when surrounded by white people.

I loved the way the memoir concluded the most, but you'll just have to read it to find out!

CW: domestic violence/abuse, death, gaslighting, strained parental relationships, racism

[Amie Kerber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salted Plums is a memoir written by Alison Hong Nguyen Lihalakha, a woman born in Vietnam who travelled to the US when she was two as a refugee. She describes her struggle of reconciling her Vietnamese heritage with being an American, and being in a place of in-between where she does not feel she truly is either. It feels like an exploration into the struggle many of us have but do not share - who are we? what makes us, us? is that good enough? who defines good enough?

This was a beautifully written book. The authors writing is visually descriptive and emotionally intuitive. I could feel what the author was writing about as she described different points in her life. I could feel her struggle as she reconciled how she was treated by her parents growing up. I could feel her uncertainty as she explored social relationships while trying to protect herself from being too exposed. I could feel her dissatisfaction with her early career, and the disappointment she felt as she realized that this too, would not help her be fully White and American.

The intersection of culture and identity is an important theme, and the authors writing is descriptive of how she experiences both, with a clear shift of growth over time. She describes how we view culture and identity within ourselves, but also how we hold assumptions of these things when we interact with others.

The author speaks of ways to validate culture and identity, as well as of ways she felt she had to hide these things in the early years of her life as a visible minority.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys stepping outside of their worldview to learn of the experiences of others.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kahana Press for the opportunity to read this advance review copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Salted Plums" is a warm, welcoming memoir. Lihalakha wrote in a touching, open voice about her own journey about being an Asian-American growing up and trying to find her place in the world and a community in which she belongs. Early in the narrative, she avows a key truth: "I was slowly recognizing," she says "that we are all human no matter where we're from and what we've been through; there's no shame in being who you are, and I had been ashamed for so long." This duality of trying to fit into the world's mold of oneself is something that a lot of people can relate with, and I think the author did a great service by offering up these truisms.

I really enjoy stories like this. When reading the author's tale, I felt like she was in the room with me and we were just sharing a cup of tea (or a bowl of the title treat!). It feels odd reviewing this, in a way, because the author obviously knows her own story! So I think here I'll focus on how it made me feel and what I connected with:

First off, I thought Lihalakha was admirable and vulnerable talking about her family in very open, honest terms. There were certainly considerably challenging components in her relationship with both her parents, but she was able to explore those without devolving into saccharine pabulum. She was so genuine throughout the whole story that I gleaned so much and was able to reflect on my own relationship with people in my life.

Furthermore, I really treasured the centerpiece of the inner conflict inside of the author, where she tried to find heartfelt, sinewy connection. I felt, even if the author didn't say these words explicitly, that she voiced perhaps a central tenet of her experience: "I felt I was too Asian to be American and too American to be Asian." What I loved was her eventual realization, especially after hearing her own family's voyage from Vietnam to the US, that this unique blend of identities is important and her story matters.

From her closing paragraph: "I wanted to share how much I struggled with accepting my culture and identity. In telling my story, I have learned to embrace my past and all that my parents did, all that they suffered and experienced, to get me here. I have learned to embrace who I am and what it means to be Vietnamese *and* Asian American."

And I am better for having witnessed Lihalakha's transformations, wisdom, and growth. This was a great memoir with an excellent narrative voice that explored significant, timely insights. Many thanks to Girl Friday Productions for the ARC!

[Nancy Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many books start strong and then halfway through loose steam, but this book did the opposite. The second half of the book was well worth the first half. Hong begins by lamenting her life as an Asian American, which sounds mostly woe-is-me. But she eventually grows to embrace her background and the sacrifices her family made to give her the opportunities of a better life.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book felt like the author was sitting down with me and telling me her story. It felt super personal and raw. She did an INCREDIBLE job at explaining her life in a way that wasn't pretentious or text-book-esque. She beautifully wove together her childish thoughts and fears with her mature adult opinions on the same events. The tension that she felt about whether she was truly American or Asian was so interesting to read.

Overall, this memoir was so good and I would highly recommend it!

[Jackie McMillan · Rating 2 out of 5]

(2.5 stars)
After really enjoying a Vietnamese-Australian story of immigration, All That's Left Unsaid, I picked up Salted Plums hoping for more of the same. It was perhaps too high a bar to set as I found this book depressing and lacklustre by comparison. Salted Plums is more about internalised racism, which the author, Hồng Nguyễn, takes the bulk of the story to recognise and correct: "The process of accepting my past and my ethnicity was a slow one." The writing is factual and rudimentary, the bones of what happened in the author's immigration story from Viėt Nam to America, rather than evocative in a way that paints a picture of her life.

"They looked nothing like my family and me, so I didn't think being myself was an option." The author's choice to distance herself from her Asian heritage and instead aspire to be American makes her feel fake and hard to like throughout the book. With no interest in the past, Hồng doesn't connect with her mother's immigration trauma and the aspirations for a better life in a new country that it stems from, and focuses only on the negative: "It was hard living with a mother for whom nothing was ever good enough." For her everything is very black and white, from jokes about child abuse to Asian stereotypes, she has a tendency to overreact and be dismissive of people, stemming from her "desire to whitewash" herself. While she does note it in the book—"I was a raging, self-hating bitch. Casualties were inevitable"—it didn't make the high levels of judgement, internalised racism and lack of self-reflection any easier to read.

What was interesting was the smashing of the idealised home in the book. Despite not fitting in while in America, a trip back to Viėt Nam also sees Hồng, her mother and aunts, roll up their noses and act as judgemental outsiders: "Time had marched on, yet Viėt Nam was still living in the past". Turns out for Hồng home is Hawai'i because it was the first place she witnessed "Asians being themselves, being American" in a way that allowed her to relax into a less fake, less judgemental mode of being herself.

With thanks to NetGalley and Kahana Press for sending me a copy to read.

[Anjana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author's full name is on the cover for a reason. It may be a mouthful, but it carries the weight of her experiences and her discovery of herself (or so I presume, based on my reading of the book).
I am on a non-fiction spree this year, much to my delight. I have been able to cover a wide range of topics, and I can safely say that I have not come across this particular angle this year. The author is a Vietnamese refugee who became a US citizen and struggled with her identity as a child and beyond. Due to habit, the parents imparted just the bare minimum of their past to their children while insisting on their own culture be followed that put her in a more awkward position than she would have been otherwise.
In some ways, during the author's childhood, there was a continuous influx of people from that part of the world, but her understanding of the political situation of her own ancestral country, as well as the neighbouring ones, is minimal at best. This is not new, most of us have only a brief understanding of the larger machinations of the world, and this is where reading books like these help introduce us to the world at large.
This is a deeply personal story that the author manages to convey while showing how her own behaviour in some stages might not have been the best one without lingering on it. I found the flow of the story a little off at times, but not enough to put me off the book. I kept reading because I wanted her to find her own place in the world (which she eventually did, obviously). She suffered through hardships and had to work hard to find her own happy place, and I was glad to reach the end.
I would highly recommend reading this book if you want to know more about the complexities of multiple ethnic identities in a time when things were cut and dried. Times have changed for some things, especially food. Food is a sticking point that points to a significant difference between children of Asian descent and those of European ones. I think that is one thing that a globalized world has helped bridge to some extent. It is not hard to imagine the discomfort the author felt as a child being that different from most of the children around her!

I read this as an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

thank you netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review. I'm sorry it took me so long to review it!

first of all, I have to say I'm not a big memoir girl. I struggle living my own predicaments, I don't know how to handle others. But the title Salted Plums and the subsequent description intrigued me. I didn't expect to be allowed to read it (because of the aforementioned wariness of memoirs, it shows on my Goodreads). But there it was in my 'Your Shelf' section! What a surprise! But also what a beast to look up to. I want to be kind to the writer and publisher, they gave me this book for free! But I also want to be honest.

So imagine my relief when I really enjoyed the book! Since I don't know much about memoirs, I don't know how to critique it per se, apologies, but that means I am going off of vibes and how it made me feel! And I was intrigued. Alison weaves a story from her early childhood, into young adulthood to adult life in a way that feels genuine and as if she's simply telling you her life's story. There were times that her stories surprised me, shocked me or intrigued me. I can't say I relate with her story necessarily, I did feel engrossed in it. Alison tells the tale of her life in such colour that you can't help but join her on her journey. She described her life around her in vivid detail and evoked a clear scene in which her life is set that you can imagine being there. Her emotions, as a child, a teenager, young adult and full-grown adult, are all examined with both a critic eye but also grace for how she grew up and what she was taught.

For a first publication, I have to say that Alison Hong Nguyen Lihalakha did really well. Her story took me by the hand from the first page and led me through a pleasantly paced and interesting book. Whie=le still not a memoirs girl (sorry!) I have to admit that I enjoyed this one and will keep an eye out for any other publication by Alison.

[Susanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to the author, Kahana Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Because of my own life story, I tend seek out stories of people who grew up between different cultures. The author immigrated from Vietnam to the US with her family as a very young child and grew up not only with economic hardship, but also with what seemed to be a real dearth of emotional support and a high level of internalised racism and negation of her ethnicity. Understandable, as she was surrounded by white-bread middle-class midwestern America, but still shocking in terms of how she thought of herself. The lack of self-reflection and the raw, factual tone made this book hard to read at times. The author does find a home as an adult in Hawai'i - it was the first place she witnessed "Asians being themselves, being American", which freed her to grow into accepting her heritage and identity.

[Bethany Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging memoir, giving a great view of a Vietnamese growing up in the USA after her immigrant parents fled to the US. I liked how the memoir showed the increased awareness that the author had as she grew and struggled to find her identity. I would have liked to feel more emotional connection to the author. It felt as though she kept the reader at a bit of a distance, and more exposition than I would have liked. I enjoyed the read however. Love the title and the beautiful cover.

(Thanks to NetGalley for providing a free copy of this book to read and review)

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's difficult to know how to review a memoir because I feel like if I say something negative, it's insulting the person. But this book was 95% complaining about her entire life. It wasn't until the end that things started to be a little more optimistic. After a while it became dull and routine but I kept reading because I had no other book at hand.

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging and heartfelt memoir. A fantastic narrative of identity, struggle, and successes. With humor and introspection, Alison takes the reader through an intimate portrait of growing up Asian in America.

[Jose C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the best memoirs I have read. I found it to be inspirational and well written. The author has an excellent ability to make the more ordinary parts of life seem a bit magical at times. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in inspirational memoirs.

[Carole Landry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The young author describes her spiritual and cultural journey from Viet Nam to Florida. Her honesty is both refreshing and brutal and she discovers family stories that serve to validate the courage that propelled the family to flee the American War.

[Tiffany]

not going to rate because its hard rating people's life experiences. had some relatable moments coming from a family of boat people. we all navigate life differently. especially with not being white and cultural assimilation.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many themes she starts but doesn’t fully finish. Lacks deep reflection despite being a memoir about her life and experiences as an Asian American. Doesn’t really bring any new ideas about rejecting her Vietnamese identity initially and then growing to accept it.

[Mott.Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of stories that had me captivated from the beginning!

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little memoir about the experience the author has had growing up in America after having fled Viet Nam with her family when she was just 2 or 3 years old. She had dug deep into her own identity and documented all of her struggles and realizations nicely. I found it a little repetitive, but in the end, that's what coming to terms with your identity really is--a repetition of acknowledging who you are in many different circumstances and situations. Readers with an interest in memoirs or Viet Nam should enjoy this book. I especially liked reading about her family's journey back to Viet Nam and how they felt.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for an advance copy of this book.