Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey

“They belong to the country, whether their families like it or not.”

Tri Huu redirects the resentment he felt toward his father for abandoning his family at the contemporary Vietnamese government that celebrates Huu Nghiep as a war hero. Rather than allow his family to bury him in My Tho as they wished, the government insists on interring him at the military cemetery. To Tri Huu, the current Communist leadership failed to uphold the ideals that his father fought for, and Huu Nghiep became disillusioned. As a result, Tri Huu is further embittered and feels stripped of a way to justify his father’s desertion of his family by believing that he achieved his goals for the nation.

“You can’t look at our family in a vacuum and apply your myopic contemporary Western filter to them.”

During the family’s visit to Huu Nghiep’s grave, GB compares the war memorial to Arlington Cemetery and wonders what role his grandfather played during the Vietnam War. In this quote, Tri Huu’s criticism points to how Western accounts of the Vietnam War silenced Vietnamese perspectives. As a product of an American education, GB doesn’t understand the personal story of Huu Nghiep, a Viet Minh adherent who believed in fighting for his country’s independence and forsook his role as father and husband to ensure a better future for his family and his compatriots. Tri Huu’s angry