The word refugee has its origins in the French word refugier: to take shelter, protect. How does fleeing Vietnam protect the narrator of Ru and her family? How does fleeing Vietnam cause them harm?
In Ru written by Kim Thuy, the narrator and her family have to flee Vietnam due to the war. On her voyage, and after, she is deeply affected by her journey across the world. The protection she got from fleeing comes in obvious and also subtle ways. First, she is physically safe, away from a warring country and the impending threat of communist take over. Less obvious she gets a new chance at life in a prospering first world country, that many can only dream of having. Now this journey does cause her and her family harm. They are forced away from their home with only the possessions they can carry, most of them are taken by the time they reach Canada. They wind up in a Malaysian …show more content…
“Not one of the Vietnamese in our group possessed such opulence, such generosity, such nonchalance in her curves” (Thuy, page 9). Her first teacher in Canada showed her what it is like to be an American women, in the aesthetic sense. The narrator admired how her hips swung, how she carried herself, and most of all the feeling she gave to those watching her; almost as if she was casting a spell on her voyeurs. “... he explained ingenuously that I was too fat to be Vietnamese…. I understood later that he was not talking about my forty-five kilos but about my American dream that had made me more substantial, heavier, weightier” (Thuy, Page 77). She wasn’t just a Vietnamese immigrant anymore, she has taken on the importance, the self worth of an American girl; She could stand up for herself and her dreams. She was weighed down by the love she had for herself and for those around her, by the job she had, by the man she married, by the loving kids she
In Ru written by Kim Thuy, the narrator and her family have to flee Vietnam due to the war. On her voyage, and after, she is deeply affected by her journey across the world. The protection she got from fleeing comes in obvious and also subtle ways. First, she is physically safe, away from a warring country and the impending threat of communist take over. Less obvious she gets a new chance at life in a prospering first world country, that many can only dream of having. Now this journey does cause her and her family harm. They are forced away from their home with only the possessions they can carry, most of them are taken by the time they reach Canada. They wind up in a Malaysian …show more content…
“Not one of the Vietnamese in our group possessed such opulence, such generosity, such nonchalance in her curves” (Thuy, page 9). Her first teacher in Canada showed her what it is like to be an American women, in the aesthetic sense. The narrator admired how her hips swung, how she carried herself, and most of all the feeling she gave to those watching her; almost as if she was casting a spell on her voyeurs. “... he explained ingenuously that I was too fat to be Vietnamese…. I understood later that he was not talking about my forty-five kilos but about my American dream that had made me more substantial, heavier, weightier” (Thuy, Page 77). She wasn’t just a Vietnamese immigrant anymore, she has taken on the importance, the self worth of an American girl; She could stand up for herself and her dreams. She was weighed down by the love she had for herself and for those around her, by the job she had, by the man she married, by the loving kids she