Thanhha Lais verse novel shows the reader the struggles of being a refugee, a 10 year old girl and her family. Ha was to be tutored by someone because she struggles with speaking there language in Alabama. It shows the struggles of Ha and her family needing to leave there country because of the war and needing to go from Vietnam to Alabama. They struggle with the neighbour’s inadequate behaviour showed towards Ha’s family. Lai also highlights that Ha struggles with finding friends and trying her hardest to cope with being bullied by a kid in her class at this new school she moved to.…
In 1945, France controlled Vietnam. However, the communists in Vietnam wanted control, so they fought the French. In 1954, the Geneva agreement ended the fighting and declared Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam independent countries. The agreement also split Vietnam into two countries; communists governed North Vietnam and South Vietnam became a democratic country. North Vietnam reneged and the communists tried to take over South Vietnam, so the American military fought the communists in a battle that became known as the Vietnam War (Barr, 2005). The Hmong in Laos experienced tragic, long-term consequences for their wartime allegiance with the United States by secretly fighting in the Vietnam War.…
In the 1950's, the United States began to send troops to Vietnam, during the following 25-year period, the ensuing war would create some of the strongest tensions in US history. Almost 3 million US men and women were sent thousands of miles to fight for what was a questionable cause. In total, it is estimated that over 2,5 million people on both sides were killed.…
At first it was very difficult to adapt and everything was so strange for the “rich teen girl” as she had never lived before in such an ugly and poor district. Moreover, her big problem was with language. Because of that problem, children who lived in her new district — including Korean children (English-speaking Korean-American kids) who are settled in USA before her — excluded her from their activities. However all of them had emigrated and lived in nearly the in same condition, and it was not easy to ignore the class divisions of the previous country.…
Ha has to flee home in other to stay alive with all the stuff they really need and leave the rest of things behind in Vietnam. She's fleeing by ship with many people that have the same idea to go somewhere else to stay alive they leave by sea on a full ship until a ship with an American flag comes and helps the the Vietnamese fleeing home by giving fresh food and water which they didn't have in the ship coming from Vietnam.…
When Ha and her family are on the ship traveling to their new home, they hear that their country no longer exists because of the war. After hearing the news Ha and her brother both put one of their favorite things in a cloth that is dropped into the ocean. This represents that she is moving on from her life is Saigon and is maturing. When Ha moves to Alabama and starts attending school, she gets picked on by the other kids (Lai 146). When the kids were teasing her she could have fought back, but instead she walked away. When the new year comes and Ha’s family is praying for good things and Ha says, “I think and think then I close my eyes again. This year I hope I truly learn to fly-kick, not to kick anyone so much as to fly.” What this means is that when Ha was getting picked on she wanted to know how to defend herself, but now as she’s grown up, she wants to become…
Refugees are very common across the globe and there are many reasons why people become refugees, but there is one main reason and that is war and utter chaos. In the book “Inside out and Back again” by Thanhha Lai, it talks about a young character named Ha who becomes a refugee after a war reaches her home Saigon, and this take place during the Vietnam war. Ha is a young 10 year old girl who has 3 older brothers and one mother and her father is at war. Ha is a nice little girl but she has a gusty side to her and she likes to feel smart and is very competitive and when something doesn't go her way, she doesn't simply “let it slide”…
Haven’t seen you and dad for a long time. I still remember that day I went to the army to train and be ready to go to Vietnam. Not really sure why we were doing this. But that’s what America offered for us. I wish I could go to college with my best friend Jeff. Do you remember him? The guy who usually came to our house to play with me. I can still remember when we were kids, we broke the flower vase you just bought. You were really mad at me, you almost wanted to punish me. And Jeff said that it’s all me. That’s a good memory for me. But you know what, he died. He just died this morning. Like 3:00am. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. He was ordered by me. I killed him, our captain ordered ask to patrol the village. And I asked him to do it for me. Like I don’t know. It just happened. He saved me, he shouldn’t die. The vietnamese fired all the village. I could not even find his body. This is really ridiculous, he died for me. But he got nothing, except he will get a name imprint on the memorial.…
Saigon, a small city situated in South Vietnam, is where I grew up. It’s not a big city; however, its population has been growing rapidly in the past decade. New immigrants from different part of the country keep coming toward us for higher-paid jobs and modern technologies. Unlike the U.S, Vietnam is not a developed country. We have low standards living condition; some parts of the country even have no electricity; crimes and violations happen frequently because people want to escape from poverty; etc. Growing up in a country consisted of those characteristics, I was taught to be ambitious and to push myself hard enough to reach higher goals. It is the bad condition in my country that harbors my dreams to come to the US and to get access to…
When you are someone’s support system you take on multiple roles that indirectly deteriorate your self preservation. Being a listener or a shoulder to cry on, requires sacrifices that, in the moment, you do not even recognize as imposing. Voluntarily and willingly being there for someone begins with the unwavering doubt that you and your own problems cannot and will not prevail over your person’s immediate crisis. Depending on the duration of your duty, a somewhat selfish thought of inconvenience is bound to surface. But, that wave of retraction is almost always combatted by a riptide of dedication and loyalty that brings you back to sea, where all you can do is tread. In turn, the suppression of self regarding issues regularly comes with a layer of obligation and a sting of bitterness.…
Turning inside out means that your personality changes when you don't want it to and being treated abnormal, unlike anybody else. Ha’s experience of being a refugee defines refugee experience. I say that because when Ha became a refugee, Ha changed internally because Ha no longer feels like she used to in saigon, her home country before Ha and her family entered the U.S. In saigon she felt that she's smart because she understood the language and the schedule, but now in Alabama Ha does not understand the language or the schedule and Ha now knows “What dumb feels like(pg. 157)”. Clearly Ha no longer feels like herself because before Ha became a refugee she felt brilliant but now she no longer feels brilliant instead she feels the opposite,…
“Refugees are everyday people who are forced to leave their homes because they are afraid to stay in their home country.” Before Ha flees home she was sly, stubborn, and selfish. She would pinch the little girl next to her when she didn’t get her way at school, she would buy less for her family to buy more for herself, and she would do stuff just because she wanted to do it before one of her brothers. Ha is the main character from “Inside Out and Back Again” by Thanhha Lai. Ha is a refugee just like just like other kids from Saigon South Vietnam. Refugee lives are turning “Inside Out” and “Back Again,” and are forced to flee their home and find a new one.…
One universal challenge that Ha and other refugees struggle with is being ridiculed and judged because they are not of the same religion as everyone else in the new country. Therefore, they are bullied / harassed because of it. “I hate everyone!!!! A lion’s paw rips up my throat, still I scream, I hate everyone!!!!” (Lai 209) Ha, from Inside Out and Back Again, feels she does not belong. She is so upset about this, that she is outside of her home, screaming, “I hate everyone!!!!” “Sometimes I wish I’d stayed at war rather than being here without friends” (Brice) The quote is self explanatory, really. She wishes she stayed back home in the war sometimes, because she deals with discrimination and harassment at school, and feels it would be better…
In Ha’s war torn country Ha’s family has to make a decision to leave or stay in Vietnam, but they don’t know what to do. One reason why it is so hard to decide is that Ha has her papaya tree and Khoi has his chicks to raise. Khoi doesn’t want to leave because he wants to see his eggs to hatch, so he wants Ha to stay and raise her tree. Another reason why it is hard is that Quang says that they shouldn’t leave because they should have honor not to leave Vietnam. Quang thinks it is a good idea to stay because he doesn’t want to disrespect his country and he wants to rebuild after the war is over, so he will have honor. Finally, they don’t have a decision yet because mom thinks that their family will change and they will side with the Communists.…
Basically identify the dominant idea but then use a reading strategy to identify the underlying meaning and either accept it or reject it.…