Family Tightrope: The Changing Lives Of Vietnamese Americans

Family Tightrope This page intentionally left blank Family Tightrope T H E C H A NG I NG L I V E S OF V I ET NA M E S E A M E R I C A N S Nazli Kibria P R I N C E T O N U N I V E R S I T Y P R I N C E T O N, N E W J E R S E Y P R E S S Copyright  1993 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved The author gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce the following poems: “Tomorrow I Will Be Home” by Cao Tan (epigraph to chapter 5) and “The First Day of School” by Truong Anh Thuy (epigraph to chapter 6), both from War and Exile: A Vietnamese Anthology, ed. Nguyen Ngoc Bich (Springfield, Va.: Vietnam PEN Abroad, 1989); “Written Aboard a Boat on the Way Back to Mount Con” by Nguyen Trai (epigraph to chapter 3), from The Heritage of Vietnamese Poetry, ed. and trans. Huynh Sanh Thong (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979); and “The Tale of Kieu” by Nguyen Du (epigraph to chapter 4), from The Tale of Kieu, trans. Huynh Sanh Thong (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kibria, Nazli Family tightrope : the changing lives of Vietnamese Americans / Nazli Kibria p. cm. ISBN 0-691-03260 — ISBN 0-691-02115-5 (pbk.) 1. Vietnamese American Families. 2. Vietnamese Americans—Social conditions. I. Title. E184.V53k53 1993 305.895′92073—dc20 93-18777 This book has been composed in Adobe Sabon Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Disclaimer: Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. FOR MY PARENTS This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix CHAPTER ONE Assimilation, Adaptation, and Immigrant Life 3 CHAPTER TWO The Study and the Setting 24 CHAPTER THREE Vietnamese Roots 38 CHAPTER FOUR Patchworking: Households in the Economy 73 CHAPTER FIVE The Family Tightrope: Gender Relations 108 CHAPTER SIX Generation Gaps 144 CHAPTER SEVEN The Changing Contours of Vietnamese American Family Life 167 Bibliography 173 Index 181 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Many people have generously oVered their time and advice in the past several years as this book took shape, first as a dissertation at Rutgers University in 1986 and then in several permutations thereafter. This study would never have been launched without the support and friendship of James Guetti. His presence in this book will, I hope, adequately suggest my personal and intellectual indebtedness to him. The debt is both for specific advice on the manuscript and for more generally teaching me—though I didn’t feel I was being “taught”— that “accuracy counts for something.” Thomas R. Edwards deserves special thanks for numerous suggestions as to how the manuscript might be improved. His careful intelligence and his memories of going to drive-in movies both kept my spirits up. George Kearns persistently oVered himself as “a hard wall to bounce oV of,” and I am grateful for his continuing interest in my work, whether in New Jersey, Turkey, or Scotland. George Levine, Andrew Welsh, and William Vesterman at Rutgers all took time out from other obligations to comment on portions of the manuscript, as, at Princeton,