Theme Of Aunty By Andrew Lam

Ha’s mother is grieving the disappearance of her husband and the fall of Vietnam to Communism. The fallout of the Vietnam War causes separation for Ha and her family. Once in America, Ha finds that many in the small township move to ignore her culture and her heritage. Vietnamese culture and

Our identities are key to our understanding of the world. Mental models through which information is processed are built off of life experience, taught ethics and morals, and upbringing. Identity is discussed in the following texts - The Politics of Exile by Elizabeth Dauphinee, “Unlearning the Myth of American Innocence” by Suzy Hansen, and “Letter to America” by Aida Hozic - through various themes of American culture. Dauphinee, in particular, examines the depth of personal identity and its ability to change. All three works consider the many components of personal identity and its formation as well as its undoing.

     Identity is one of the main questions throughout all of our readings, because it is hard for people to accept who they are in society. Accepting their identity as a minority with little if any freedoms

Identity is officially defined as the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another. A person’s identity can be shaped by many factors, like family and culture. The graphic novel American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang is a book that really focuses on identity and who someone actually is. In American Born Chinese, all the characters struggle with their identity and accepting that they are unique and different because other people judge them for being who they are.

One of the larger aspects of this book is cultural collision. This can be seen from the many times Lia and the doctors would disagree with each other because of their cultural differences. The Lee’s

Finding where belongs in society can be difficult. We search for a place that we can belong too. Identity is what makes a person who they are. Knowing who you are can give purpose to life. Identity can come from your culture that you grew up with, the languages you speak, music you listen to or anything that you participate in that makes you feel like yourself. In “Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee, the struggle to find an identity is shown through the author and her sister as they are immigrants trying to maintain their culture, when America is telling them to only identify as American. In “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, fights to maintain pride in her identity in a society

People only focuses on where they are but forgets where they came from. In “The Trip Back”, Robert Olen Butler criticizes self and family importance on cultural perspective through the story of Khánh, a Vietnamese man living in Louisiana, who is on a way back of picking up his wife’s grandfather. Butler sets cultural difference viewpoint as the crucial aspect of the story through Khánh’s behavior.

In the essay “Peeling bananas”, Wendy Lee uses reflection to support her argument that it is hard to live in two different cultures. By using her own experiences and comparing the life in two cultures, she shows us her difficulties of living in America. In the same way, my essay reflects on the various perspectives of people from Vietnam and America about the meaning of home; and then I apply compare and contrast method in my essay to point out how cultures affect our opinion about home.

Lam’s family is from Vietnam and moved to America for an improved and better life. The children do not have any knowledge about their Vietnamese heritage yet are expected to obey and respect the rituals. The story portrays a relationship between the mother and her children. Throughout the story, the father in the family was not mentioned. The mother is seemed to have the main role in the family since she has to maintain the family together and continue the traditions of the Vietnamese culture on her own. “Every morning in my parents' suburban home north of San Jose, with a pool shimmering in the backyard, she climbs a chair and piously lights a few joss sticks for the ancestral altar, which sits on top of the living room's bookcase. Every morning she talks to ghosts (Lam, par. 4). She shows her affection for her culture by continuing to do the rituals though she lives in America now. The Vietnamese ritual she does is lighting the incense and praying to the

Being the eldest child in his family and male, Trung Lam (“Cậu Hai”) bore a large majority of the responsibility for his family before and after he came to Vietnam. In his family, he was the first to come to the United States, getting an education in order to earn various jobs and save enough money in order to bring along the rest of his family, including 8 younger siblings and his parents. Like many would expect, he — among many others — arrived in the United States, smuggled on a boat with many others. However, luck chose the side of my uncle, allowing him to make it through the trip alive, while others were not so fortunate.

Coming to America, Lam based on his background was overwhelmed with the broad array of cultures and influences presented to him in his new surroundings. This overwhelming feeling caused him to lose part of his original culture and to adopt others as a result. Lam states “ ‘I guess when we’re gone, the ritual ends.’ Such is the price for living in America”(1). By referring to the death of a ritual being the price of living in america, conformity is given a unavoidable property to it.

Vietnam is very much relevant to this story because of the fact that Lam’s mother brings over Vietnamese traditions in hope that her children will continue to carry on their her legacy. According to the “who will light incense when mothers gone?” , Lam create the idea of Vietnams identity by saying, “mumbles solemn prayers to the spirits of our dead ancestors, and to the all-compassionate Buddha. Here he is explaining a Vietnam tradition his mother practiced as a daily routine, asking for protection of her children and that they shall thrive in America. Between the family moving to America and the mother asking of her God for her kids to prosper in America, this tells readers that the education system or dreams for a good career probably are not as advantageous as the opportunities in America.

As a Vietnamese, I am very proud of the values and the ethics that still remains from thousands of years ago, by the way of life of the ancient; the upbringing, and the respect that we may not have now. “Cultural identity” is what I am talking about. Every single person has a different perspective on cultural identity. Culture plays a huge role in shaping individual personality or identity. It also refers to the traditions, people around you, and religion, etc. Our background is what sets us apart from everyone else because we came from a different culture. That is why culture created; it makes you feel belonging to something. Culture determines the person we are today and in future.

In most case, identity is shaped by culture. Since culture is a set of ideals life practices, routines and attitudes set up by a certain community hence culture plays a major role in shaping the identity of an individual. An individual’s character and attributes can be because of their background. This is due to the set up that one has grown up (Dumas 19). People tend to learn more about their culture, and as they grow up it becomes part of them. They embrace the culture’s beliefs and tend to do things following the set routines. The aspect of following the set routine and beliefs play a significant part in shaping the identity of an individual.

Identity is what evolves us, it is what makes us think the way we do, and act the way we act, in essence, a person’s identity is their everything. Identity separates us from everyone else, and while one may be very similar to another, there is no one who is exactly like you; someone who has experienced exactly what you have, feels the way you do about subjects, and reacts the same to the events and experiences you have had. This became prevalent to me as I read through many books, that everyone goes through the process of finding who they are. A prevalent theme throughout literature is the idea that over time one develops their identity through life over time, in contrast to being born with one identity and having the same