I lived with immigrants from the war in Vietnam when I was in college, medical school, and during my residency in both Providence and central California. I have heard many stories from those who left, and throw my work at the VA, through those who served. When I began in health care, the Vietnam war had been over less than a decade, and there were many people struggling to cope from both of those communities.
This is a memoir by a Vietnamese immigrant who has just had a child of her own and she is struggling to put her family and her past into context with her present. In doing so, she gives us a bird's eye view of what it was like to be in Vietnam before and during the war, the things that drove both sides to fight, the legacy of colonialism in Asia, and how damaging it was to her parents thereby to her.
The art of storytelling through graphics is something that I am not inherently drawn to (no pun intended). I do think that something that is this painful is well suited to simple pictures with straight forward words. Much like the movie
Breadwinner, some things are just more bearable to consider when the story is in drawings. This is a powerful memoir, which is quick to read but will keep you thinking about it long after you turn the last page.
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