Day 2

This section of the book involved many situations in which Bich was forced to confront the realities of growing up and a loss of innocence through conflicting identities. In her relationship with her sisters, she is largely left out and put down coming to the conclusion that she would not fit in or be welcomed by them at any point soon. Chrissy begins to rebel while Anh follows and Bich suffers some of the repercussions. She sees her sisters fully embracing American culture in the form of clothes, make up, music and relationships, something she longs to do herself, but she is still constrained by Rosa's restrictions. She begins to find her own alternate reality in her books. She enjoys reading because she is able to live through the characters, particularly through the descriptions of the meals that she longs to have herself. I thought it was very interesting when she compared her own immigration experience to that of the Ingalls family from Little House on the Prairie. At first, she is comforted by the similarity between the two experiences. Someone else had encountered the same difficulty assimilating to American culture as her own family did, but there was hope because Ingalls family made it and became "fully american." However, as she grew older and experienced more of life as an "outsider" she found several flaws within their story involving racism and judgement. She realizes that the life of these characters were unobtainable due to her economic and social status within American society.