6/1 - Nam Le

In the piece, “Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sarcifice” by Nam Le, the author explores the various issues within the Southeast Asian narratives. The layers of the issues, such as: intergenerational trauma, stereotypes, and cultural conflict, was brought into light in a contemporary and relatable way. The author is a graduate student working on their writing program. Among his peers, there are a lot of micro-aggressions and exotification to his Vietnamese identity and his narrative. For these reasons, I think it was harder for him to embrace his culture in a way that was not seen as capitalist or tokenizing. While reading the piece, I thought a lot about how Professor Maira talked about self-determination and how it is not discussed enough. As the he main character seems to struggle with claiming his Vietnamese identity and understanding his relationship with his father, it is interesting to his progression of self-determination.

Additionally, I thought the character was unique because he defies a lot of the stereotypes of Asian men. For example, he is a writer and that in itself counter argues how Asians are typically associated with STEM fields. Following that, he is a reflective and thoughtful person, which adds more complexity to the stereotype of “quiet Asian men”.