Atlas Indicated Indifference
Under certain political regimes, merely having certain books in your home is enough to cause one to fall under suspicious. Even if they were gifts or simply never read. Of course, if one has an actual home library and has read those particular words deemed suspicious, the punishment can be severe. Such is the stimulus for a seemingly paranoid outburst punctuated with a metaphor:
“We can’t have all these novels around the house. The communists call this capitalist filth.”
Of Pawns and Ants
Political propaganda masquerading as a documentary shown to the narrator by her father. Translated as Chessboard, the title gives little indication as to the content of the film which purports to identify her family’s neighborhood as being filled with “hoodlums and criminal elements.” Her memory creates a much different metaphor as an appropriate title for existence there:
“My grandparents, my parents, my sisters, and me—we weren’t any of the pieces on the chessboard. We were more like ants, scrambling out of the way of giants, getting just far enough from danger to resume the business of living.”
PTSD
This is a medical term that is usually reserved for singularly extreme cases of emotional or mental trauma sets a time bomb in the mind. With each passing day, the ticking continues onward toward an unknown countdown when the bomb goes. It is rarely used to describe the behavior of adults resulting from the experiences of childhood, but the description by the author of finally learning about her father’s childhood is pretty much a definition of PTSD.
“I grew up with the terrified boy who became my father. Afraid of my father, craving safety and comfort. I had no idea that the terror I felt was only the long shadow of his own.”
“Refugee Reflex”
“Refugee Reflex” is a metaphorical term the narrator uses to describe the automatic involuntary reflexive urge to immediately flee at the signs of danger which recall such signals living under Vietnamese oppression. Even many years later when signs that would mean danger back in Vietnam might be to an American entirely without any sort of contextual warning, the psychological effects producing these actions remain. It is part of the survival process for those who have faced such existential threats in their life.
The Point
The purpose of writing this memoir is explicitly addressed by the author as having originated with the family’s first return home to Vietnam since escaping as refugees by boat in 1979. Explicitly addressed, though the purpose is couched within in metaphorical language:
“I began to record our family history… thinking that if I bridged the gap between the past and the present… …I could fill the void between my parents and me.”
