Momentous Memoirs #1

I wasn't sure how my World Lit students would take Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club. It's about Asian-Americans, yes, but specifically about women and their moms, and about their many forms of dissatisfaction. I hoped they could see past the angst and the feminism to the lyrical writing, vivid storytelling, and powerful use of everyday events to explore profound truths about relationships. I think they did.

As we read, we wrote our own memoirs (myself included). Each wrote one story about an adult influencing them, and one story about a key moment in that adult's life. Students interviewed those adults - mostly their parents - and used the interviews as a launching point to explore some themes in their own families.

My students blew me away with the stories they uncovered and their analysis of why those stories mattered. It's only been a month since I was groaning over their research papers, but here in narratives, many were in their element. I'd like to share with you a few highlights. I chose four outstanding writers from four different Asian countries, none of them native English speakers. Even many students with much lower English abilities had really poignant and vivid moments in their stories. Next draft, theirs will be fantastic! I loved, too, glimpsing their perspectives as Asians and Third Culture Kids.

Here's one girl's introduction:

“My mother calls me ‘con trâu cùa nhà.’ She says it in Vietnamese and occasionally introduces me that way. Translated into English, I am “the water buffalo of the house.” My personality mirrors that of the water buffalo, as did my mother’s, her mother’s, and her mother’s mother’s. I come from a race of water buffalos. The Vietnamese buffalo is known as a dedicated and extremely hard worker, toiling despite suffering. On the flip side, buffalos are also known for their brashness, carelessness, and destruction. My mother called me a water buffalo because I was breaking the glass in the house, spilling cups, and being blamed for broken things, even things I did not break! Someday, people will call me a water buffalo not because I destroy, but because I will be as hard a worker as my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother...”