Thanhha Lai's Inside Out And Back Again

While Paul, the main character, was on leave from the war he says, “I find I do not belong here any more, it is a foreign world” (168). For the soldiers the real world is hard for them to cope because they are so accustomed to battling for their lives. They are so used to be in a world where all they do is fight; to come home to normalcy where there is no battling and worrying is

Australia is said to be a multicultural and multiracial country. So why can’t we, as a country and as a nation, say yes to immigrants fleeing from a different country? As immigration to Australia is supposably apart of our history and it would be wrong not to continue on with the actions of our ancestors.

Although Tim O’Brien and the rest of the soldiers return to their houses at the end of the Vietnam War, they did not actually retire to their homes. Even though the words “house” and “home” have the same definitions, their connotations are polar opposites. A house is described as an actual building where people live, but a home is a place of familiarity that one longs to return to in order to feel comfort and support. For the soldiers in Vietnam and Tim O’Brien especially, their idea of home is altered by their experiences in the war, leaving them drowning in feelings of exile (Chen). Without any place to go or any home to return to at the end of the war, the soldiers are left to discover new coping mechanisms for their lives on their own.A home is supposed to be the place where they can escape from their past realities and advance forward, but without this

Inside out and back again by Thanhha Lai is a work of historical fiction. First, Ha and her family were forced to flee their home country of Vietnam due to war. They have to face this hardship and without the support of their father, who was kidnapped by the Communists and disappeared. Then, they travel on a boat in unsanitary and awful conditions to refugee camp in Guam. Next, they are sponsored by a man they called ‘’cowboy’’ and and taken to live with him in Alabama. In America, the family faces discrimination Because of their race and language and struggle to adjust to their new life. Finally, they accept that their dad, husband is gone and still living free. In inside out and back again the papaya tree symbolizes hope,greatfull, and happiness.

Refugees are people who have been forced to leave their countries in order to escape war, persecution, and natural disaster. Most refugees are ordinary people coming from ordinary places. One of these ordinary people, Kim Hà from South Vietnam, was created as a fictional character for the novel Inside Out & Back Again, written by Thanhha Lai, who modeled it after her own life as a refugee. Lai, just like her character Hà, was forced to flee her home during the Vietnam War, and ended up in the United States, in the state of Alabama. While Hà is a fictional character, Lai gives her certain characteristics so readers of her novel will realize the struggles refugees have to face, and the ways they must recover from them. For example, during her

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity” (Dwight D. Eisenhower). Throughout all of history war has surrounded human existence. From the Spartans in Rome to Infantry Marines patrolling the streets in Afghanistan, the presence of war has affected generations since the beginning of time. In the book, Fallen Angels, the author, Walter Dean Myers portrays how the harsh realities of war have a substantial impact on soldiers and their experiences by displaying the internal transformations, the power of fear, the permanent psychological damages, and the cruelty of the environment through a classic Vietnam War story.

In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the soldiers have to carry a lot of things physically and mentally. One of the biggest things the soldiers have to carry is conflict, but not just between other people, inside of themselves as well. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien the author has an internal conflict of whether to go fight in the war in Vietnam or to run away to Canada which he tells through the story “On the Rainy River.”

The novel “Inside Out and Back Again” describes the life of a family of refugees searching to find home. It describes the highs and the lows of day-to-day life for the family, perfectly describing the universal refugee experience. The universal refugee experience is an umbrella term used to describe the myriad of trials and tribulations refugees endure as they move to a foreign place. These are experiences that all or most refugees typically go through in their process of finding a new home. Ha’s journey is a perfect example of the universal refugee experience. She faces racism, discrimination, loneliness, and, over time, a growing sense of love for her new home. Ha’s life is turned “inside out and back again”. Before Ha had to flee Saigon, she was headstrong and selfish, but she was also a girl who loved her mother and couldn't wait to grow up. She wanted to be able to do something before her older brothers did it, and do it better. But most of all, Ha wanted to fit in, to be liked. At her core, Ha was a normal little girl.

In A Viet Cong Memoir, we receive excellent first hands accounts of events that unfolded in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from the author of this autobiography: Truong Nhu Tang. Truong was Vietnamese at heart, growing up in Saigon, but he studied in Paris for a time where he met and learned from the future leader Ho Chi Minh. Truong was able to learn from Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary ideas and gain a great political perspective of the conflicts arising in Vietnam during the war. His autobiography shows the readers the perspective of the average Vietnamese citizen (especially those involved with the NLF) and the attitudes towards war with the United States. In the book, Truong exclaims that although many people may say the Americans never lost on the battlefield in Vietnam — it is irrelevant. In order to understand this mindset, we have to understand how the NLF

One theme that you can identify from “Inside Out And Back Again” is,hope determination and family are needed to get through tough times.Ha and her family have determination when they flee vietnam.They have hope to have a good life without war and they have family,eachother.

Ha is an example of the universal refugee experience because she goes through things that many other refugees go through, such as the feeling of being “inside out” and not belonging anywhere. Ha has to learn a new language and a whole new way of life, she has to give up many of her old traditions and ways of life like many refugees do. A universal refugee experience is something that is experienced by not all, but most refugees. Ha started out stubborn and forceful before they fled their home, "I decided to wake before dawn and tap my big toe on the tile floor first," (Lai 2). Ha is angry that only men 's feet bring good luck and she will not let that be the case for she wants to bring luck to her family. She loves her mother very much but she would rather hide her brother 's sandals then say that she loves them too, she does but she wouldn 't admit it. Ha from the book Inside Out & Back Again experiences many of the same things as other refugees do, this is known as a universal refugee experience. Many refugees are turned inside out as they go through the process of moving from their home country to a new country and as they try to find a sense of normal life again.

Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam is the story of Andrew X. Pham known as An, and his struggle with his own identity as neither a Vietnamese nor an American as well as the story of his sister Chi and her lifelong struggle to understand herself. The story begins with An as a nine year old boy in a post war Vietnam. An’s family is planning to embark on a treacherous voyage to escape communist Vietnam for the United States by boat. The story focuses on An and his sister Chi, who is searching for her identity along with An. However, Chi’s identity search is not like that of An’s. I will focus specifically on chapter 8 from Pham’s book, titled Last Gamble, which is featured in our book Coming

out of Vietnam; as shown throughout the story, the recurring themes of trauma, love, and guilt

In 2013 when Viet Thanh Nguyen began to write The Sympathizer, it had been 40 years since the Vietnam War. It had been 40 years since French and American military involvement ravaged a once beautiful countryside and littered lush forests with napalm. It had been 40 years since 2 million people were displaced from their country and left to die in the Pacific Ocean. In those 40 years, many works were published about the Vietnam War. These stories came from many, contrasting, perspectives. Young or old, male or female, the war was told differently by every person who was involved in the battle, no matter how small their role. Despite the cacophony of standpoints vying to tell the definitive tale of what happened in Vietnam, the perspective of

I have never lived away from home before attending college, so at times I feel homesick for the luxuries my family home provided me with. For example, I greatly miss my cats, my sister, having a private kitchen and bathroom, access to a car, and our spacious backyard. I often cannot wait to go home as I know all these things await me. I even frequently complain about missing these aspects of my life. For the millions of people displaced across the globe the feelings I have are massively multiplied as they are not just away from their home for a few months, but instead forced to abandon their homes forever. The human rights film that I watched was Human Flow, and the main topic discussed was the life and perils of people forcibly displaced from