Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey

Dzung Chung continues her narration of Tri Huu’s past in Saigon. The section alternates between Tri Huu’s adulthood, when he was captured and tortured by soldiers, and his school days as a youth. In the scenes from his adolescence, the illustrations are multicolored and cartoonish in the style of Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin comics. In contrast, the scenes depicting his imprisonment are predominantly black, and the character rendering is more stylized.

As a student, Tri Huu attended a French school, where he first met his friend, Do, and his future wife, a French girl (who remains unnamed in the book). Violence and instability erupted in the south with Viet Minh bombings and protests against the South Vietnamese president. Tri Huu’s home life was violent too: His mother, Le Nhi, struck him on several occasions. Tri Huu’s brother and sister obtained scholarships to study abroad, and his half-brother Thanh, the son of the French colonel, moved in with him and his mother. For a long time, Tri Huu awaited his turn to study abroad, but he was denied acceptance to an international program due to the region’s transition from French to American officials.