While reading Bich Minh Nguyen's Stealing Buddha's Dinner, I became increasingly aware that although Bich expresses a desire to fit in with her fellow classmates, she experiences many obstacles by war of her cultural and physical differences.
Having fled Saigon in 1975, Bich was forced to grow up in a foreign environment until the guidance of her stepmother entered her life. Bich experienced confusion between her home life and the world outside. Her home consisted of Vietnamese culture and language, but the world outside was a fascinating and foreign environment. Bich's confusion grew continuously in response to the difference of customs. She consistently enforced rules but didn't take the time to teach simple manners or social skills. Further attention is drawn to Rosa as a mother when Bich highlights instances of her cooking. Most significantly, Bich recalls watching Rosa pulling out "four ready-made graham cracker crusts" and placing them in a line on the counter before she filled them with her homemade blueberry filling (216). When Rosa came into the family with her daughter Chrissy, she attempted to mold Bich and Anh into well-behaved girls. She forced them to go to language classes and failed to equip them with tools to navigate the harsh waters of the foreign community. Therefore, Bich, Anh, Chrissy, and Vinh were forced to fit into the predetermined mold chosen by Rosa. Rosa neglected the necessity of assimilating by further enhancing the children's differences among their fellow classmates. This experience forced the kids, like the pies to form "a tough skin" over the tops (216). Although the pies satisfied in the beginning, they ultimately became "lurid and ghastly" (217). Rosa's constant ability to heighten the children's confusion led them to become lonely, unsatisfied, and depressed. This lasted until they chose to throw the pies out and hide them within a bag inside another bag.
Therefore, Rosa's instruction to her children didn't help alleviate any stress of school. Rather, her instruction heightened the confusion experienced by the children of what needed to be done to assimilate. With a growing confusion, the children's loneliness also expanded.
I agree that Rosa's enforcement of rules do not help the children and only result in the children creating "a tough skin" just like the pies. Instead of really teaching the children right from wrong, they are simply told what to do without an explanation, making it difficult for the children to understand "why." Perhaps the fact that they hid the pies within a bag inside another bag and threw them out represents the way they bottle up their emotions and completely disregard it. As a result, the children do not have a healthy outlet to alleviate stress.
ReplyDeleteStephanie K.
I think the confusion felt by Bich derived from the juxtaposition of seeing the mold her friends' mothers created and Rosa's inability to fit in. Bich sees the blue collar lifestyle as American and is unable to see that it is not necessarily just her Vietnamese identity that others her, but also her family's economic status. The pies are an artifact of Rosa's attempt to be something that she is not. They are wrapped and discarded. The children are able to realize that Rosa doesn't make pies out of neglect, but because she's not good at it.Rosa's character and story of alienation is an interesting parallel to Bich's character. Rosa was in part exiled from her family for the choices she made and I think her strictness towards Bich and Anh is a way for her to compensate for her mistakes and also the leniency she shows towards Chrissy. Rosa can not give Bich the homemaker experience because she is not a homemaker. Although some of the confusion could have been avoided with some explanation from Rosa (which would have been an extremely difficult conversation to navigate without making the children feel even more othered by their social economic status), Bich mentions that she is happy Rosa was not a homemaker.
ReplyDeleteBy Jenna C.
I am curious as to what you meant when you typed that Rosa, "failed to equip them with the tools to navigate the harsh waters of the foreign community." What tools did you have in mind? Also "Rosa neglected the necessity of assimilating by further enhancing the children's differences among their fellow classmates" what makes them a necessity outside of Bich's desires? I'm curious because I sympathize with Rosa yet you make claims about all the children, not just Bich which makes me wonder what evidence you have to include them. I get Bich's confusion but at the same time, the lack of communication cuts both ways. Bich doesn't voice a lot of her complaints (probably because her curiosity was curtailed at a young age), however when it came to school prayers she does and Rosa responds. We don't see her complaining about being called a "Bitch" merely asking what it means. The parents reactions were bad so Bich didn't feel comfortable to follow it up and say, "well that's what they're calling me at school." Her lack of communication shows how little trusts her parents, and that's sad, but because Bich doesn't air those grievances, how can we expect her parents to know and 'equip' her with anything.
ReplyDeleteRebecca B.
I agree with you that Rosa unknowingly failed in some ways when raising the children. Rosa sought to keep Bich and Anh connected to their culture, and so, in some ways, she didn’t give them the tools they needed to function in the culture they are now a part of. Rosa also fed into their hyper visibility by putting them into bilingual classes and forcing them to participate in school functions having to deal with their culture. Another way that Rosa makes things a bit harder for them is when she didn’t teach them how to use a knife or where to sit when visiting their friends. Rosa probably didn’t do it intentionally but she spends so much time focusing on teaching them to stick to their home culture that she doesn’t teach them to fit into their new one. I don’t think Rosa is a bad person, I just think she wanted to encourage her children to achieve things that her own parents did not encourage, and so she missed some vital lessons for how to act around other people.
ReplyDeleteBy Raylene M