The Refugees

The narrator’s mother is a predictable woman until Mrs. Hoa enters their lives. The narrator’s parents run a Vietnamese grocery store, and the narrator, who goes to summer school to learn English, is dissatisfied with being surrounded by Vietnamese culture while living in America. Mrs. Hoa enters the store one day while the narrator is pricing cans. She is collecting funds for anti-communist forces in Vietnam. The narrator’s mother declines and tries to change the subject. Mrs. Hoa brings up her neighbor, who people think is a communist sympathizer because she refuses to donate to the cause. After Mrs. Hoa leaves, the narrator’s mother calls her an idiot.

The narrator imagines the anti-communist forces as gritty yet heroic. He is outraged on the drive home that evening when his mother says she will not donate because the war is over. He is doubly disgusted at his father’s suggestion that they should pay Mrs. Hoa “‘hush money’” to make their lives easier. The narrator knows his mother will have her way. That night, he hears his mother tell his father, “I’ve dealt with worse than her” (44). The narrator remembers his mother telling him about the famine she experienced as a girl in Vietnam following World War II.