Ru?

I read this book in multiple states. 

This one was different. It had me in tears at times. Even as I try to gather my thoughts and write this blog, I find it hard to do so. It was captivating and I think it’s because of how I relate to it in one way or another. Yeah, what a strange feeling it is to relate to a book and have it make you reflect. A lump in my throat and misty eyes. 

I did not know what to expect from this book but that it was about a refugee from Vietnam in Canada. But her story was more than that simple description thankfully. The experience of reading matters: the environment, the drink you are drinking, what clothes you are wearing –  I think it all makes a difference. Excited to finally start reading the book, I sat down, took out a bag of Okra chips, but then I choked. I read most of the book in pain and that really distracted me, but nevertheless I was enjoying it. 

While I could feel the okra pressing against my throat, I was reading an identity crisis put into words so beautifully. The crisis of an immigrant who flees their country to pursue the American Dream (whatever that is, but it is a good advertisement). The American Dream, the endless opportunities, best education, best practices. But there is one catch… assimilate. Not necessarily by force, but to fit in: erase your identity, strip it away, to be like “them”. She calls herself homeless because of how she dressed, because clothes have their seasons and you can’t wear them like that, you have to wear the “right” clothes now that you live in Canada she told herself, to follow the “right” practices, suggesting that those of her mothers were wrong, those of her ancestors from Vietnam (p. 71). Then gets to her education. She “could recite by heart a passage about Jacques Cartier… [she] knew the word surgeon but not darling or tanning salon or horseback riding… could sing the national anthem but not ‘The Chicken Dance’” (p. 73). The American dream, however, gave her confidence; she built her identity on it, and she gained the tools and skills to present herself as a powerful figure to the world, enjoying what people here enjoyed. And then she gets reminded by the waiter that if she is that then she can’t call herself Vietnamese because she has tried too hard to get rid of anything that could remind her of it. 

This identity crisis. Who is at fault here? The parents? Who fled Vietnam so that their children could have a better life, a more prosperous future? She gave the example of what a mother’s love is, which is to abandon her child willingly out of love knowing that they will have a better future (p. 36). That reminded me of The Girl Returned and her biological mom. This author also uses the word Angel for the right people… good!

She also talks about needing to leave the past in the past with the man who went back to the boat to grab his gold because he didn’t want to let go of his past and look into the future “a punishment for looking back, or to remind us that we must never regret what we’ve left behind” (p. 99). Her Viet part, in fact, her memories. Where she belonged. She carries all those days in the refugee camp with her. They have made her who she is. To remember and to preserve what she went through. She tells her sons about Vietnam and the war, for them to know, so that history is preserved. Like a duty to pass on the Viet identity she was trying so hard to remove in the years of her adolescence. 

She struggled with attachment. She lived what she describes as a good life, presumably. Her family lived in somewhat good condition, and then she was stripped of it in a matter of hours and left it all behind, taking nothing but her acrylic bracelet with her. So, it became a practice for her. To not get attached. In her everyday life for a long time and in her romantic life. As if you are not attached to anything, you are free. You let go easily without looking back. Just how the American dream had manifested itself within her as trauma… 

So, at this point I had forgotten about the okra stuck in my throat. I gave up and felt a tear going down my cheek. I sat in the dark room thinking of how deeply I had felt some of these words. Some of these emotions. It almost hurt reading sometimes. That’s hard to explain. It is not right to use the word “enjoyed” to describe how I felt reading this book; I don’t know what the right word is, but I enjoyed it as that tear made its way down my neck. I took pleasure in the pain. Then I thought maybe I should have written a novel about my experience as a 13-year-old immigrant to Canada. Though some of my readers might have called me a spoiled brat compared to this novel. Maybe if I had put my struggles as a young girl into words and written it down, it would have been better. My need to “fit in with the Canadians” at my school when I went to class for the first time, barely knowing how to express myself. Just like she describes it: deaf and mute, but not deaf or without a tongue. For years, I was lost just like her. I had built a new me. My parents would talk about my childhood, and I would not want to remember what I had left behind. I was a “princess” but now I was chasing the American Dream like a “woman”. I had matured much younger than I was supposed to, perhaps; that’s what everyone used to tell me. For years, I didn’t like the smells I smelled when I was 14. I got rid of everything that reminded me of those years. I changed everything in my room so that I could hopefully let go. In recent years, I have become comfortable with talking about these experiences as an immigrant. And what I think about is that my immigration experience was a luxury, and I still went through all of this. I don’t compare myself to those who leave because they are scared they might not wake up tomorrow and see their loved ones one more time.  

If I went back, though, like our narrator, I would do it all over again, and I am glad I went through this. Although I was once lost, I found myself and who I am, so proud to be a Persian woman chasing her “dreams”. That is me. Just like her. And I carry my identity to pass it on to the ones who come after me, because my parents did the same. It made me who I am today, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I should have written that novel instead of making you read all of this, sorry! I had to write. And that is what I noticed with all the books we have read. Writing as a way to deal with the unresolved emotions and finally move on. As a tool. What do you think?

All this was because of a woman’s art. And that is one of the powers of Women’s writing. Right here.