"If I bridged the gap between the past and the present, I could fill the void between my parents and myself. And that if I could see Vietnam as a real place, and not a symbol of something lost, I would see my parents as real people, and learn to love them better."
The Best We Could Do is a graphic novel memoir by Vietnamese-American author and illustrator Thi Bui. It was published in 2017.
A new mother, Thi traces her immediate family history, including that of her mother Hằng ("Má") and father Nam ("Bố"), older sisters Lân and Bích, and younger brother Tâm, from before their departure from South Vietnam after the war into the present day.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents:
- Bố's father beat his mother and eventually him after announcing his departure.
- Má's mother was an imperious socialite who was emotionally withholding and physically abusive towards her children.
- Freudian Excuse: Thi describes her father as mean and emotionally neglectful, but comes to understand him once she starts learning about the horrific wartime poverty and trauma he endured as a child in post-World War II Vietnam.
- I Have No Son!: Bích was disowned by the family for living with her then-boyfriend, though that she and her husband eventually come to live "two towns away" means they eventually reconciled.
- Hope Spot: The author describes the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II as a "brief but hopeful" period in Vietnamese history, where the Việt Minh might have taken control and retooled Vietnam into a functional country had the French not arrived.
- Immigrant Parents: The central conflict. Thi fled Vietnam as a child and grew up in the United States, in contrast to her parents, who were "fully-formed elsewhere" and had more difficulty assimilating. Both were distant with their children, and Thi laments her Child of Two Worlds situation.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Thi's mother was beautiful when she was younger, but by the time Thi was old enough to understand what good looks were, the stress of motherhood, war, and immigration had run her mother ragged.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Thi's oldest sister, Quyen, lived only a few months. Thi wonders if this caused her parents to look on their subsequent children as disappointments.
- "Rediscovering Roots" Trip: Thi describes the family's first trip back to Vietnam after the war. Her mother and oldest sister, who remembered their life there, were excited, while she and her younger brother, who had been in America nearly their entire lives, were "documenting instead of remembering".
- Riches to Rags: Má grew up the youngest daughter of a well-off family under French colonial rule, but had to sell off her possessions to move to and settle in America.
- Trauma Button: Thi's mother bolts out of the room as Thi has a difficult birth, commenting later that she had "forgotten the pain". Thi later explains that she and her siblings were all born under difficult circumstances, and that her mother had lost two babies in addition to her four surviving children.
- Uptown Girl: Má's well-off family hated that she had gotten with Bố, but she liked that he was "poor and intelligent", and her family's dislike made her want him more.
- Worthless Foreign Degree: The Vietnamese degrees of Thi's parents were not considered when they emigrated to America, and her mother eventually undertook menial jobs with long hours as well as years of night school.
