Task Three: Excerpts for Comparison

1. (From Catfish and Mandela by Andrew X. Pham)
Mom comes from the old world, where mothers are lifelong housewives who expect to be near their children all their lives. Senior homes, retirement communities don't exist in their vocabulary. When her friends explained the concepts of children leaving home at eighteen and parents going into rest homes in their 'golden years,' mom's eyes went wide with disbelief. 'That is so cruel. Strange, strange country.'
The last few years, I think my father, who is more culturally savvy, has been talking to her because she has started saying things to us in Vietnamese like "Well be all right when we retire. Your father is working a few more years so we'll be financially secure. We're in America; if we live with you, no girl will marry you. And no girl will let you support us. We know it's different here."
She tries so hard I ache for her, this simple woman who takes pleasure nickleing the grocers for bargains, deals for the family. This woman who lets in every Mormon that comes by the house with pamphlets. This woman who makes egg rolls for cosmetic girls at the department store who give her free makeovers. This woman who eats cold leftovers standing in the kitchen alone because lunch in her American Household is too lonely. This woman whom we've shortchanged.

2. (From When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip)
As we rode one last time through Anh's elegant neighborhood, my mother
talked bitterly to herself. "Well, there goes everything we worked for! And what will your father say, eh? …Stupid, spoiled, foolish child! It's bad enough to have a rotten daughter whom no one will marry-now I have a bastard grandchild thrown into the bargain! And, of course, everyone will blame me! Isn't a mother supposed to protect her daughter from such things? Just tell everyone your husband's in the service. Tell them he's a soldier from Saigon-and from a good family, too! Oh, what a beautiful wedding you had! Yes-that's what we'll tell them! That's how we'll get by."
For the first time in my life, I wished my mother was somewhere else-or even dead. It was a horrible thought-I'd never had it before-but it gripped me now as strongly as the living thing inside my belly. True, she stood by me, caring for the sick little animal no one else wanted, but somehow that wasn't enoug…I wanted to cry, but all my tears had been shed. I wanted to rage, but my hatred for the war and the Viet Cong who raped me had already consumed my blackest thoughts. I wanted to forgive, but I did not know how. I was too frightened of the future. I could only sit back in the siclo and caress my swollen belly. ..while my mother spewed venom at the pitiless world beyond.