By Justine Trinh
Within the Western imagination, Vietnamese refugees are treated as a homogenous group, victims in need of saving while the United States are magnanimous rescuers. However, this ignores the many different refugee journeys and pathways that Vietnamese refugees took to get to the United States and the many places they went after their rescue. Alison Hồng Nguyễn Lihalakha’s memoir, Salted Plums, shows that the Vietnamese American/refugee story is not a monolith. Like my own maternal family and others, Lihalakha’s family was taken to Guam after the Fall of Sài Gòn and then to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, one of four military bases at which refugees were processed. However, her family’s journey differs from many as they chose to resettle in Florida and later Kansas following her father’s death instead of California.
In her memoir, Lihalakha allows herself to be vulnerable as she pulls back the curtain to reveal the realities of growing up as a refugee child in America. She gives an honest picture of what it was like growing up in a household where her father was abusive to her mother, and after his death, her mother turned her violent frustrations onto her seven kids. Lihalakha shows the complexity of immigrant parental love as she yearns for a mother “who was capable of hugging, smiling, and laughing.” She reimagines a moment when her mother picks her up a half an hour late from school. Instead of being met with silence and scowls, this reimagined mother, who is similar to June Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver, smiles and takes an interest in Lihalakha’s day, asking her about how her volleyball game went. But as an adult, Lihalakha realizes that her mother was incapable of these loving moments as she was busy trying to make ends meet as the sole parental figure. This moment is so relatable; I felt the same exact way growing up. I wanted those tender moments with my mother that I saw other (white) families have in television shows, but my parents were too busy working to indulge in this fantasy. It is only now that I can recognize that my parents’ and my definition of love differed like Lihalakha’s and her mother’s.
This desire to be like the heteronormative American works hand in hand with the internalized racism and identity crisis Lihalakha details throughout the book. Throughout her childhood and into her college years, Lihalakha distanced herself from other Vietnamese people and Asians around her, because to be Vietnamese/Asian meant to be different—Other—and thus unwanted. She writes, “I was Vietnamese but NOT. I was Asian but NOT. I was American.” But this distancing does not guarantee belonging as Lihalakha learns through her first relationship with Kurt, a white man. During Thanksgiving, Kurt’s mother tells her, “Mixed race couples… they don’t work,” and that it would be best if she ended things with him. Despite being American, Lihalakha is cast as the transgressive body that can never be in a relationship with Kurt, the All-American boy. It is her race that marks her as different from these white bodies, and therefore, she, as the offending party, must be the one to end things. While Kurt’s mother frames her hurtful comments as altruistic (“People don’t understand…you’ll be mistreated”), it is ultimately for Kurt’s alleged benefit and not for Lihalakha’s.
This distancing also isolates her from the community as her former friend, Thúy-Lan, accuses her of being judgemental after a dispute over a group email. This email sent by Thúy-Lan lists a bunch of Asian stereotypes (such as “you’re Vietnamese if you gotta have have fish sauce with every meal” or “you’re Korean if you will die instantly if you stop drinking Soju and eating Kimchi.”), and Lihalakha finds the list offensive. She claims, “This is the exact kind of shit that allows crazy stereotypes and poor English skills to get perpetuated among Asians.” While Lihalakha understands the list is a joke, she cannot fathom why others, such as Thúy-Lan, would find it funny. Ultimately, this email ends their friendship as Thúy-Lan emails back, “Your expressing of your opinion shows how opinionated you are and how unfamiliar you are of the [Vietnamese] community.”
Like Thúy-Lan, I was bothered at first by Lihalakha’s statements because I have used similar jokes as a form of community building. In my Vietnamese class, we joked about bringing fish sauce to our potluck because we were Vietnamese. These kinds of jokes highlighted the common traits we shared and how we can relate to one another. But then, I took a step back and realized Lihalakha did not have the same experience as me. Whereas I grew up around Little Saigon, surrounded by the Vietnamese community, Lihalakha grew up in Kansas and purposefully distanced herself from her Vietnamese identity. This email came during a time when her understanding of identity was in its infancy. She understood she could be Asian, but a palatable kind that required her to blend in. These stereotypes highlighted the ethnic Otherness that Lihalakha did not want to be associated with in order to be American.
The Vietnamese American story is not a monolith, and Lihalakha’s work shows that there are many ways to be Vietnamese American. Lihalakha provides an alternative experience that is just as valid as Viet Thanh Nguyen’s, Thi Bui’s, or Beth Nguyen’s experiences. Her story is one of self-acceptance that takes years to achieve, especially growing up internalizing ethnic differences. The moments Lihalakha chooses to share are relatable, from her mother asking about her grades to her desire for grilled cheese sandwiches. While Salted Plums is not my favorite memoir, it is a much needed addition to the growing body of Vietnamese American literary works.
Justine Trinh is an English literature Ph.D. student at Washington State University. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine with B.A.s in Asian American studies and classical civilizations and a B.S. in mathematics. She then went on to earn her M.A. in Asian American studies, making her the first student to graduate from UCI Asian American Studies’ 4+1 B.A./M.A. program. Her research interests include Asian American literature, critical refugee studies, family and trauma, and forced departure and disownment.