I Love Yous Are for White People free essay sample

I love Yous Are for white People I love Yous Are for White People is a memoir about Lacs journey and his family immigrated to America from Vietnam, after the Vietnams War. Lacs family had to deal with cultural shock, language barrier, and difficulty finding jobs. As a Vietnamese immigration myself, I feel like Lacs experiences live through me because there were a lot of similarities in his memoir compared to my past experiences with my parents. Lacs family and many immigrations families had the same circumstances, that had a hard time adapting to a new cultural, and establish a new life in America. As the result, this environment played a significant role on family conflict, and add to the authoritarian parenting method. This was impacted greatly on Lacs childhood life as he mentioned throughout his memoir. I believe the authors main message to the reader is that immigrant parents do their best to parent their children the best they can as they transition into a new culture and life in the United States. We will write a custom essay sample on I Love Yous Are for White People or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page But the parentings method sometimes will lead to unhealthy relationship between parents and children. This main message is revealed through many scenes of brutal discipline, emotional reactions, and verbal abuse. Unlike the Westerns culture, Vietnamese immigrant parents use the authoritarian parent method to discipline children and often time its leading to family conflict that can have a mental impact on children. According to Perception of Vietnamese Fathers Acculturation Levels, Parenting Styles, and Mental Health Outcomes in Vietnamese American Adolescent Immigrants by Nguyen, Peter V, under VIETNAMESE ADOLESCENTS AND THEIR PARENTS section, it states that Once landed in the United States, these parents must quickly adapt to the new and foreign economic system and immediately attempt to find jobs so they may rebuild their lives and provide for the family. Vocationally, most Vietnamese parents experience a drop in status by accepting mediocre jobs with low wages and begin working in fields that are unfamiliar to them (Zhou Bankston, 1998). This can be a humiliating experience for many parents, which is worsened by their lack of knowledge about the English language. Along the process, most Vietnamese parents must deal with the unfamiliarity of U. S. culture, values, and rules in the working environment and the potential for discrimination. . This section of the article is discussing how Vietna mese immigration parents can be overly stress , and add to the authoritarian parenting method. This kind of behavior from parents can have a negative affecting on children. In fact, it only discourage children from striving for success knowing that there will be no rewards but only criticism. This is reflected Lacs experiences throughout his memoir. Lacs journey began when his family settled on Western Avenue in Hollywood, California. Pa has high expectations on Lac because Pa has a hard time adapting to a new culture, and difficulty finding jobs. So Pa wants Lac to mature beyond his age, and become independent. But the only way Pa knows to help Lac achieves that goal is based on his past experiences through brutal discipline and tough love. During one of the their usual tutoring sessions, Lac experiences extreme physical and emotional abuse from Pa. Pa abuses Lac emotionally with his words, and physically with the bamboo stick because Lac is not performing up to Pas standards. La describes his fathers temper as a firecracker with a testy fuse(62). Lac list and endless list of weapons choices that his father uses to beat him. These weapons include plastic rod from mini blind, spatula, rice bowl, a radio antenna, and a wooden yardstick. Despite Pas efforts, Lac feels like it didnt help him become any smarter from the beating. He feels like Pa wants him to become a man even though he havent finish the third grade yet. He realizes his relationship with his dad as The small doses of nurturing that Ive learned to wait for and cherish are no more. Like sandy cliffs along the seashore, theyve eroded away with time. At this age, Lac needs nurture from his father just like any other children waiting for their parents to nurture them. And when their parents are not fulfill their childrens emotional needs, then children will give up. That is the sign of emotional abuse that Lac had encountered in such at a young age. One evening, during dinner time, Lac once again experience physical abuse from his dad. Pa beaten and threaten to kill Lac because he refuses to feed the dog. As Lac re-lived through that intense moment feeling confuse and hopeless, I run the evenings events through my head over and over again, trying to figure out what the hell just happened to me. With no reasonable explanation to be found(161). Like a quicksand(162), Lac feels like he would never lived up to Pas expectations because of harsh criticism from Pa, even though he has tried his best to impress and striving to meet Pas expectations, yet that still is not enough to satisfy Pa. Lac recalls The harder I try to get to the top, the more Im sucked back down by his unrelenting criticism(162). This behavior is more common among Vietnamese parents, but not so much in Westerns societies. According to Perception of Vietnamese Fathers Acculturation Levels, Parenting Styles, and Mental Health Outcomes in Vietnamese American Adolescent Immigrants by Nguyen, Peter V, under PARENTING TYPOLOGY section. In general, the authoritative parenting method of parenting has higher levels of self-esteem, well-developed sense of self, and independent and confident qualities. However, the author discovered that this type of parenting may have more negative effect on the Vietnamese children because of the culture clash that they face every day. Vietnamese American children living in a heterogeneous U. S society are exposed to the Western style life outside of their homes and must abide by the traditional Eastern culture at home. In Lacs case, this parenting typology shows that its only hurt Vietnamese adolescent more than helping them to achieve independent and confident qualities. I think Vietnamese parenting method can be excessive for their adolescents. It is more harmful for their children development then helping them, and could impact on the outcomes of their decisions making in life. For example, like the â€Å"Rats† gang in Lacs memoir, these individuals also dealing with harsh criticism and brutal discipline just like Lac . One of the gang member said Thats why we thugs. Nobody wants us and we want nobody. We rats dirty, hungry, and looking for something crazy to get into. (161) This rebellions behavior causes by their parents authoritarian method. That make them feel unwanted and abandoned because of the way that their parents is treating them. But I believe this can be improved through levels of education, two-ways communications, and counseling. After all, Lac has survived through his painful childhood life and became a successful man as Pa has envisioned, when they moved to United States. Work sited list: Perceptions of Vietnamese Fathers Acculturation Levels, Parenting Styles, and Mental Health Outcomes in Vietnamese American Adolescent Immigrants Author:  Nguyen, Peter V Publication info:  Social Work 53. 4 (Oct 2008): 337-46. I Love Yous Are For White People Author: Lac Su Chapter 4. p62 Chapter 10. p161-162