ASA 2 Section A01
Reflection #7
Response to "Love, Money, Prison, Sin, Revenge" by Andrew Lam
Within this chapter of Lam's work Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, Lam describes the events of April 4, 1991, the day that four children of second-wave Vietnamese immigrant held over forty people hostage in Sacramento to demand weapons, equipment, and transportation to return to Vietnam to kill the Viet Cong. Tragically, three of the men were killed without receiving their demands. The incident was wholly incomprehensible to the general public at a time over fifteen years after the Vietnamese War had already been lost, but the invisibility of the Vietnamese-immigrant plight continued to overwhelm their community. Lam compared these "Brothers" to himself, comparing how they both had similar histories but that because of how history had affected them they were unable to cope with being stripped of their homeland and unable to fully assimilate in America as refugees. Wedged between two cultures that they can not identify with fully, they try to do both.This reading is very relatable even twenty years after it was written. Lam speaks about the problems and conflicts of choosing one's identity, filial piety, the failures of Americanization, and how one can acculturate without losing sight of their traditional culture.
Question: Should immigrants try to forget about their past (at least temporarily) and become "reborn" a new person through Americanization?
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