A review by hilaryreadsbooks
Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora by Andrew Lam

4.0

The more mature response to one's tragedy is not hatred nor resentment but spiritual resilience with which one can, again and again, struggle to transcend one's own biographical limitations. History is trapped in me, indeed, but history is also mine to work out, to disseminate, to discern and appropriate, and to finally transform into aesthetic self-expression.

Really loved this set of essays on the Vietnamese diaspora. Andrew Lam writes with a deep understanding of himself and the journey he is taking to get there, touching on legacies of war, older generation Vietnamese refugees trapped in history, memories easily erased within capitalist America, and the dual lives of Vietnamese American children.