Stuck between old and new

In Response to “Love, Money, Prison, Sin, Revenge” by Andrew Lam

In this article, author Andrew Lam talked about the story of immigrant children who later committed crimes to make their voices heard. It was the story of three brothers whose families came from Vietnam to escape persecution and became refugees in the US. The three men and other refugees later became “not quite American and not quite Vietnamese”. Then the author talked about his own journey from being a refugee and becoming an American journalist. He also talked about being different from his father and fighting different “wars”, which basically stood for their clash of tradition and modern values. Also there were no “good” or “bad” guys. These immigrant people were conditioned by the government and faced hardship even as refugees at a new country. They fell into poverty and this was the only way to make their voices heard.

It surprises me to see the generation gap between an older generation and a younger one. They have completely opposite values. The older one wants to stick to the traditional values, the younger generation wants to be more “Americanized”. What does it really mean to be an American? Could one truly forget his or her roots?

Xishan (Lucy) Ye

Section A02