Thi Bui Provides Further Insight on The Best We Could Do to ˾ Community
WOOSTER, Ohio Immigration, identity, and the importance of graphic storytelling were among the topics hit on as she presented the 2019 Peter Mortensen Lecture Tuesday night to an attentive audience of students, faculty, staff, and community members inside McGaw Chapel at ˾.
Bui discussed her award-winning illustrated memoir The Best We Could Do, the summer reading for new ˾ students as part of the , by answering questions from moderators Alicia Brazeau, director of the writing center, Ivonne Garcia, chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer, and sophomore Rondell MacKey.
The Best We Could Do is a personal story spanning Buis familys refugee journey from war-torn Vietnam to the U.S., her ensuing childhood in California, and up through present-day motherhood to her Vietnamese-American son. With overarching themes of family dynamics, the sacrifices parents make for their children, and the significance of identity, the book is relatable to mass audiences.
Also relatable for many of those who are embarking on a liberal arts education at ˾ is Buis broad range of interests. With a passion for art, law, politics, writing, and more she gained a series of rich life experiences and perspectives en route to discovering her career path as a talented cartoonist, storyteller, and educator.
The illustrating and writing of The Best We Could Do, which fulfilled the seldom told account of Vietnamese refugees in the U.S., became a rich, collaborative process with her parents and their lived history. That process revealed competing truths, or the ways in which we experience the same things differently, a concept that can be applied in many forms, including across cultures.
The Asian-American identity was explored deeply in the book and Bui came away with one powerful conclusion. The pressure to assimilate with a dominant culture really messes with people. I think, at this point, we dont have a dominant culture in the U.S. We have a plurality we dont need to write, create, or speak from a minority standpoint. Thats not helpful your identity is within you, she remarked.
Bui offered strong thoughts on the current immigration crisis as well. We live in a time where there are more displaced people in the world than existed when I was a refugee and even that existed at the end of World War II. There are over 70 million displaced people in the world. How can that be? Whats happening in the world that creates this? Displaced people are usually the most vulnerable people, the people with the least power. So, I think its important to shift the balance in the conversation because usually the people talking about immigration policy are not the ones who are actually impacted. Its very easy to say No, those people cant come, but when you are those people its sometimes the difference whether your kid lives or dies, she said.
Besides the compelling story, another reason behind the success of The Best We Could Do is its beautiful, impactful illustrations. Bui noted its her job as a storyteller to write a focused narrative and the graphic medium really, really forces the writer to do that because theres only so many words that you can fit.
A small group of students got an inside look at Buis creative process that underlies her illustrations via an artists talk at Ebert Art Center as her visit to campus continued on Wednesday.
Posted in News on September 25, 2019.
