People might like to think a war is done when a cease fire is signed, but for most people who lived through a war it goes on for decades.
Immigrants, as troubling as they are to some people, are an integral part of what the American Dream is supposed to be. They're understandable to a considerable number of Americans.
People may be vaguely aware that there's suffering in Iraq and Afghanistan, but simply because the media are filled with American-centric versions, we still see the experiences through the American perspective. We are just completely ignorant of what might be happening to other people.
Immigrants who come to a country are going to lose something, for sure, but they hope to gain a great deal by making this journey, whereas refugees by definition have lost a tremendous amount - not just country and society, but also more personal things like careers, prestige, status, relatives, identities. This inevitably makes the longing to remember the past even more powerful among refugees, to the point of often debilitating them.
In the United States, the immigrant experience occupies a very central place in American mythology. And sometimes, that place wavers between acceptance and rejection.
Writers from the majority can assume their audiences know what they're talking about - they don't have to explain things, whereas minority writers are expected to.
Refugees are threatening, not just to Americans, but also in many countries the world over. And it's partially because, unlike immigrants, refugees do not choose where they're going to go or why they're fleeing, and they are unwanted populations. They bring with them the stigma of disaster.
Every new refugee to a society, whether it's the United States or some other place, is subjected to fear. They are the new outsider population, the new other.
I never called myself a writer because it seemed so pretentious - a writer was what somebody else called you, a title bestowed.
Hollywood in many ways serves as the unofficial ministry of propaganda for the United States.
You have to wear a different face when you're interacting with the larger culture. And you can be more of yourself at home or in the local market or in the local church speaking your own language. That was my sense growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in San Jose.
I think all immigrants and refugees are preoccupied with memories to one degree or another. But again, this question of how much to remember and how much to forget is really aggravated for those who have lost a tremendous amount.
My identity is deeply intertwined with being a refugee because that's the first experience that I remember.
