The Gangster We Are All Looking For

The Gangster We Are All Looking For, published in 2003, is a novel that takes the reader through the life of a young, unnamed girl—whom we will call “the Girl”—and her family, who have fled Vietnam in the wake of the war with America to live in San Diego, California. The book draws upon author lê thi diêm thúy’s own experience as a Vietnamese refugee in America. The story begins with the Girl leaving Vietnam on a boat with her father and four strangers, or “uncles,” and arriving as refugees in America—a foreign place with different customs that does not exactly welcome these immigrants wholeheartedly. They first live with Mel—the son of the man who sponsored them to come to America—and spend time with his mother, Mrs. Russell, who grieves for her recently-deceased husband. But after the Girl breaks a precious object, she and Ba—her father—are asked to leave and find a new home.

During the confusion of their departure from Vietnam, the Girls’ mother was left behind on a beach in Vietnam. But eventually, the Girl’s mother—known as Ma in Vietnamese—reunites with her family. They live as a family in a red apartment with a large swimming pool that delights Ma and fascinates the Girl, but the landlord fills it in after realizing the children of the mostly non-white, Vietnamese tenants are jumping into the pool from the balcony. Ma works as a seamstress and Ba as a welder, but they’d both rather be doing different things. The Girl witnesses violent fights between her Ma and Ba that result in her father slamming his fists into walls and her mother smashing chinaware. However, they also deeply love one another and are inseparable from each other. Meanwhile, the Girl experiences puberty and adolescent crushes. She also longs for her brother’s companionship while her parents ignore her questions about what has happened to him. The members of the family face challenges as Vietnamese immigrants in America. Ma would like to start a restaurant, but they don’t have the money for that. The Girl experiences isolation and racist slurs at school. Ba needs to rely on his daughter’s English to get help starting his own gardening business.

The family moves between various places after leaving one apartment because the building manager had murdered a woman and another after being evicted because the landlord wants to rent the homes to wealthier families. As a child, the Girl she sees the world around her both with precise clarity—noting the types of trees in her neighborhood and the number of steps to her apartment—and also a certain naivete, such as failing to understand the cause of her parents’ fights or the nature of her brother’s death. Although the family lives in America, Vietnam is not far from their minds, whether it’s her father discussing memories of the war with a friend or her mother feeling that she has abandoned her parents.

As the book transitions into the Girl’s adult years, the reader sees a more heightened understanding of her parents’ relationship and their troubles—as well as her own mental scars. Her father’s drunkenness, crying, and erratic behavior are seen as coping methods to handle a likely undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder from his time as a soldier, even if the Girl never explicitly says this. He is stuck in his ways and unable to change, even though he needs help. After living in chaotic households with her parents, the Girl leaves home as a teenager and never returns, eventually making her way to college on the East Coast and becoming a writer. She is always on the run and does not feel like she has a permanent home, nor does she feel like she can be close to anyone. Witnessing her parents’ turmoil and experiencing her brother’s death clearly leave an impact on her, as she is unable to face her own trauma head-on. She eventually takes the reader into the experiences of her parents living without her at home and the painful memories surrounding her brother’s death in Vietnam.

Told through rich literary metaphors, shifting perspectives, and motifs, The Gangster We Are All Looking For pays homage to the complex ways that families, particularly children, process trauma; the effects of war; the nature of belonging as an immigrant in America; and the Vietnamese-American experience.