“Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” (Week 9 Entry 2) 6/01/17

“Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” Nam Le

            This reading was unique in that it was a short story rather than the articles we’ve been reading. Through this story several ideas are explored, and one was the generational divide faced between Nam and his father. The writer describes his job, his past, and his relationship. However, when it comes to his father he is rather vague about his relationship with his father. We get the sense that they are very distant, and he brings up a few anecdotes from the past as well as the differences they had through the years. Along with this he also talks about Linda and their relationship. Although he and his father have undergone many differences, he struggles to explain, and in part Linda is unable to understand (possibly due to their different cultures), that despite all of this he is still Nam’s father.

As he’s walking with a friend at night, his friend encourages him to write about Vietnam, to write about his people. We can kind of view this with some criticism as many people tell people of color and different backgrounds to write about their culture. As he walks with his father, who seems to simply want to spend time with him, he recalls the stories of immense struggle and hardship that his father had recounted many years ago. When he arrives home he decides that he will write about his people, specifically of his father’s hardships. When his father comes upon his story he mentions that threre are many mistakes. Curious Nam asks to hear more taking notes as his father recounts his stories. After redrafting the story, the father takes his story and burns it in the end. Nam talks about not knowing at the time, the reasons or motivation his father had in doing so and only feeling anger for what had been done, but he does state that he eventually came to know. In many examples we’ve encountered it becomes very difficult to really understand what other generations have felt. Parents of these generations because of hardship and simply wanting the best for their children hold them to high standards and pressures. On the other side of the fence, the children and their generation don’t necessarily understand the past hardships as well as feel like their parents don’t understand this new culture. It is often through these points of view that we encounter such generational divides, especially within Asian American communities.