5/16 Bindi Shah's “Family, Culture, Gender: Narratives of Ethnic Reconstruction” Laotian Daughters

5/16 Angel Truong Journal Bindi Shah’s Laotian Daughters

            Today’s reading allowed me to reflect about my personal life as a Vietnamese American girl. In the article, there’s a section about intergenerational family relationship and I could relate to the Laotian girls’ stories about the conflicts they have with their parents. For me, I also had this issue where my parents think school is easy and that my sister and I are too spoil. Both of my parents are from Vietnam so they would complain about how they would do more physical labor while going to school compare to us who just go to school. However, my sister and I, who have been in the U.S. education system for more than a decade, know that times has change and we have the same pressure or even more than what my parents had to go through. The pressure we have involves going to school, maintaining our grades, social life, and mental health, and fulfilling the American Dream for our parents. This also include social barriers like racism and sexism.  What’s worse is that the economy has changed compare to when my parents came to the States back in the 80’s. It is more competitive and a bachelor degree is losing its value and the cost for higher education is increasing. Like the Laotian families in the article, my parents also do not like the U.S. education system because they believe it has “white-washed” me to be more American than Vietnamese. This is shown from the fact that I do not speak Vietnamese as fluent as I use to before and that I want an individualistic future than a collectivistic one because I want to live far away from my family. My family does not really support my future but with time, as they become more assimilated and I continue my academic career, I hope they will see that to accomplish their American Dream, I must break away from my Vietnamese, traditional role because the U.S. economy wants assimilated Asian Americans who sadly fit the Model Minority Myth.  

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