Analysis Of Lac Su s Memoir I Love Yous - 1861 Words

When newcomers come to the United States, they are still on a journey of pain and suffering. Even if they can get to the United States they still must go through the trail of owing nothing in a world where everything is against their odds. This is the journey that author Lac Su wrote in his memoir I Love Yous Are For White People which is about when he and his family immigrated to the United States during the aftermath of the Vietnam War and their new life in LA county. His journey is not a unique one as many refugees and immigrants experienced what he and his family experienced in their new lives. In their new lives, many different events occurred that tells the problem all immigrants encounter when adjusting to life in America. Using Lac†¦show more content†¦Professor Vo mentioned the idea that many immigrant families whose descendants grow up in the United States as opposed to their home country tend to grow up differently. An example is the multigenerational Japanese fam ilies living in the United States as growing up the first generation made their entire families and future generations act very Americanized to assimilate into the community. This idea is not forgotten in Su’s memoir when he talks about wearing a suit at Bob Big Boy’s, ‘I don’t want to wear my suit. †¦ We are going to be eating with white people. If you don’t look nice they will look down upon you’ (Su 57). Here Su mentions about how he does not want to wear his suit for something that seemed so trivial while his father insists he does so that they impress the white people that they can act and look like them. It can then be assumed that early on in his childhood, his family wanted to be like the white community so that they could better fit in when living in America. However, this proves to become contradictory later in the memoir when Su tells his father that he loves him. His father’s response, â€Å"Are you trying to imitate those white people by telling me those fucking words?† (Su 150). This proves to become quite a contradictory response to what he previously told his son before of not being looked down by the white people, yet his very actions here is one that is