#1 Chick Red 1---slane24

In Phuc Tran's Sigh, Gone he details some of the experiences he's had as a young refugee coming into the United States. One of the blatant disconnects that he deals with is how easily he has picked up English and how much his father struggles with it. His father, who was a lawyer in Vietnam, practices his English more than anything else in his downtime and often asks Phuc to correct it for him. In one moment, he says, "Why was it so hard for him and so easy for me? Why couldn't he just say it the way it was pronounced? The first bricks had already been laid for me to doubt my father, and my doubt cast a long shadow over my faith in him even as he placed so much of his own belief in the importance of mastering English, in the American dream, in a boundless future for his children." (Tran 33)

In Tran's case, his parents were refugees, so they didn't elect to come to the U.S. His father obviously wants Phuc and his brother to do better, but that doesn't mean that he gives up himself. However, the true disconnect lies with the doubt that Phuc feels toward his father. Where Phuc looks at the situation as straightforward and logical, his father has to be idealistic because it is not as attainable for him to assimilate. 

 The only thing I can relate both stories to would be the parents. My character is Jay Reguero he and his family are from the Philippians. Jay and his family moved to Michigan due to the drug war in the Phillaians, which caused the death of his cousin Jun. Jay wants to figure out what happened to Jun, How he died, where he died, and why was he killed. His parents were not supportive of him going back to the Philippians for a year to find out about his cousin and visit family instead of going to college. Everyone in the family has seemed to put aside his death from their lives. Jay's mom relates his death to a dog's death in comparison this shows how little she and the family care. “Listen,” Mom said at that moment, hugging me closer. So I did. Baby birds chirped just outside the window. “One thing dies, and another is born. Maybe the puppy’s soul now has wings."

Jay is the type of person to do what he wants, yes he was upset with his parents but it did not change the way he felt about going back to the Philippians.

My book (Private Label by kelly yang) is about two Chinese immigrants who moved two California. One is serene who is quite popular and has a father figure she doesn't really know and the other is Lian who is picked on for his name and is pressured to be successful by his mother. Serene’s mother, however, has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which causes her to search for answers on who her father was and why he never came. Lian’s mother tries to make him study and such but he has other plans, which leads him to create a Chinese club to make his transcript look “Better”, but uses it to do what he dreams of doing. They both meet when serene brings a picture of her father and mother while her mother was pregnant with serene, wanting to know what the Chinese writing meant in the back of the photo.

What we can infer from Lian is that he is separating from the “successful stereotype” his mother wants him to have, by him technically disobeying his mother from making a Chinese club to really achieve his dream of doing stand-up comedy. This in reality causes a disconnect on what Lian’s dream will be while not knowing what the dream is.

Serene, however, has a disconnect with her father. Not knowing his voice, laugh, or even his personality. Her mother doesn't even really tell serene about Chinese culture and her mother's brand name is her last name Lee even though her true last name was Li. So in general, the reader can say that the cultural disconnect is quite opposite of serene wanting to know the Chinese culture while the mother just goes with the culture she assimilated into and does not mention her old culture.