In a lecture and reading delivered Thursday at the Center for the Arts Screening Room, author Andrew X. Pham shared vignettes and ideas from his book "Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam."
The event, sponsored by UB's Asian Studies program and Kappa Phi Lambda, an Asian-interest sorority, offered a wealth of insight into the history and culture of Vietnam and the Vietnamese-American experience. Pham discussed the complex nuances of both American society and Vietnamese society, observations culled from his incredible bicycle journeys throughout the world.
The book, which Pham wrote after leaving an engineering job at American Airlines due to the suicide of his sister Chi, described Pham's travels along the West Coast of the United States, Japan, and Vietnam. In each nation, Pham said he found a great sense of belonging, along with a sense of being lost in his own country. Although written in a travelogue fashion, it is a poignant memoir and American social critique, discussing issues of racial and ethnic identity and the significance of the modern family.
"The book is about many things," said Pham. "This book is about identity and also it is about family issues, dislocation, and loss. Your lives are about your parents' lives and I want to explain a lot of issues my family went through."
After a brief introduction, the author unabashedly revealed his life story in a terse dictum to the audience. Pham, a medium built, athletic man with scholarly glasses and short cropped hair, spoke about his humble beginnings, fleeing with his family from Vietnam in 1977 to the United States in a fishing boat, and growing up in Louisiana.
Honest evocations of his childhood and family life soon emerged, as Pham spoke of the various struggles his family had to deal with, including Chi's suicide and his two brothers' unveiling of their homosexuality to their parents.
Pham discussed the harrowing lack of identity that many Vietnamese-Americans and Asian Americans face everyday in American society. Pham said he understands the stratified nature of the United States and the disenfranchisement it causes many Asian Americans, offering a remedy for the lack of identity felt by many.
"Identity is not just physical features. There's more to it than that," said Pham. "Identity is about who we are now and what we can become. We will never be seen as fully American . you have to ask yourself where you want to go, find out about other things in your life and find a balance in your life."
In the past, Pham attempted to rediscover his country's culture and traditions, a search that led him to his former home.
"I'm a different man now," Pham writes. "I was looking to dredge up what I'd long forgotten. Most of all, I was wishing for something to fasten all these gems, maybe something to hold them in a continuity that I can comprehend."
The complex conflict between Vietnamese parents reluctant to compromise their beliefs and their children's inevitable assimilation into American culture is a theme in both the book and Pham's family. After his sister's suicide, Pham's father deemed himself recalcitrant, blaming himself for not adhering to "American" ideals.
"Now looking down the road of his dwindling years, he found that he shifted his philosophy - from the Vietnamese to the American way," writes Pham. "He laid the blame of what he interpreted as our collective misfortunes squarely on his shoulders."
At its heart, Pham's story reveals the immense struggles of a people and their ability to become inured to change.
"America is more than materialism, it is about not staying in one place," said Pham. "There comes a time when you're not satisfied with the way things are . so you find a place where you can say 'I'm comfortable with myself.'"
