I Love Yous Are for White People: A Memoir

I Love Yous Are For White People, by Lac Su is a raw and riveting look into the author's life of being raised in an Asian household in America. Lac Su's descriptive writing takes you in the moment and twists your heart inside out. He spares no harsh detail and does not censor anything. He wants his readers to feel what he felt while growing up and he does this through his simple, yet artistic way with words.The story he tells puts his readers there as if you are in the room with him. This is a story about a father and son, the relationship he has with his father and the lack of feeling self-worth because of how he was treated by a father he initially looked up to as a young boy. While many of the 'scenes' brought tears to my eyes, pain in my heart, shock to my soul, and even anger, there were also a few laugh-out-loud moments. I found this book to be a testament to survival and resiliency of the human heart. I also found Lac's memoir to be a sort of therapeutic lesson for himself. The process of revisiting painful and humiliating memories had to be nothing short of difficult. At the same time, old wounds have to sometimes be cleaned out again to break up the old scar tissue so that healing can once again take place.This book was not only written for us to take a glimpse at what life was like in an Asian household, but also to clearly raise awareness to the fact that a parent or parents can really have a large influence and affect on their children. I am grateful to Lac for writing his story because it has touched me in so many ways and it made me think deeply about the consequences of harsh discipline and the withholding of love toward your children.

Lac Su's heartfelt memoir, I Love Yous Are for White People, could not be more timely. This book is about the difficulties a first-generation Vietnamese-Chinese child who comes to America as a refugee faces. Lac Su is forthright about the obstacles: poverty, difficulty learning a new culture and language, violence, bullying at home and at school, the allure of gangs in order to fit in, the allure of crime for seemingly "easy" money. Yet this story is a triumph--despite the truly horrific experiences that Lac Su describes, he has grown into a well-adjusted, successful, loving father, husband, entrepreneur and writer. I wish this book were available in all American high schools. It could really help kids who feel they are alone because of their perceived differences, and it shows them that they can overcome the violence and misunderstanding that they may face in the present. Some of the most heart-breaking passages involve the great violence that Lac Su's own father inflicts upon his son (and Lac's mother). Sufferers of domestic violence will find that Lac Su's memoir helps to give them a voice. (Also Lac is very honest about the sexual abuse he suffers due to a cousin.) However, the father is no two-dimensional boogeyman. Lac shows why he still loves his father, always loved his father--a man who worked hard for his family but did not understand how to express his frustrations at life and its obstacles except through violence. The subject matter might make the book seem depressing, but in fact the plot moves along quickly and the tone is not at all self pitying. The author's empathy, ability to draw distinct portraits with his prose, and his basic humanity shine through.

The writing impressed me with its drawing of the tension between what the reader and the adult author understand versus what the child narrator understands. One of the simultaneously maddening and heart-wrenching scenes depicted the kid stealing an enormous sum from his mother's closet in order to finance some other kid's stupid arcade games only to learn after his father viciously whips him that he had been stealing from his college fund. The relationships and personalities described are complicated and the memoir is as much of a coming of age for the Vietnamese immigrant boy as it as a character study of his father, a man who is both villain and hero, both larger than life and amazingly vulnerable. The scene where the family uses the boy to translate English for them, his humiliation at their ignorance, shows how hard assimilation can be on everyone.The emotions moved me and I related to the anger, pain, frustration that the narrator describes, also the love and the yearning. Childhood can be lonely, but it seems like the parents are lonely as well. The mother haunts the scenes in silence while the dad thunders around and the family struggles to find its way in a strange land. There's funny parts too, like when the uncles kill a goose they find in the park or consider eating someone's dog. I love how the characters talk- everything seemed very real. All in all it's an emotional read.

The author examines key events of his troubled childhood and immerses the reader into his world of survival, fighting for acceptance, and lifelong search of his father's love and favor. Some passages moved me to tears because, as a Vietnamese refugee too, the author spoke many truths I experienced. One of my favorite passages is "It hurts the most when I'm doing my absolute best and it still isn't enough. Striving to meet my father's expectations is like climbing out of quicksand: the harder I try to get to the top, the more I'm sucked back down by his unrelenting criticism."The author's authenticity and honesty in showing us his wounds may help others to heal or realize the deep and long-lasting impact of the refugee experience.