https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd en-us 2022-02-17 21:53:24 UTC 2026-02-07 02:11:39 UTC hello@padlet.com aphilipnguyen1 https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054148591 How does the story of Thi Bui’s family’s survival from poverty, war, escape, and resettlement in the U.S. inform our understanding of the refugee experience in the United States. How does this narrative challenge the model minority myth that assumes Asian Americans have attained social and economic success and do not experience racism?]]> 2022-02-17 21:54:58 UTC https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054148591 aphilipnguyen1 https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054149468 The Best We Could Do begins with Thi Bui giving birth. Throughout the graphic novel, gender and family dynamics are ever present with tensions between spouses, gendered expectations for girls and women, and at times gender based violence. How does Thi Bui’s representation of gender, family, class, and masculinity impact the larger narrative, and how do we as readers reconcile these representations?

]]> 2022-02-17 21:55:39 UTC https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054149468 aphilipnguyen1 https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054150784 The trauma of war and politics shapes Thi Bui’s connection to Viet Nam as her homeland. Why did many Vietnamese people support the communist revolution but many others were against it? What were the driving forces throughout the centuries of conflict, and how does nationhood and independence for Viet Nam shape the ideals and hopes for the Vietnamese people and what are the gaps from the realities of war and trauma that we see unfold? How did war and revolution affect individual Vietnamese and their relationships with their loved ones?

]]> 2022-02-17 21:56:50 UTC https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054150784 aphilipnguyen1 https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054151116 What genre would you classify this book as and why? What does it mean to be Asian American, according to this book? To what extent should we read this book as representative as opposed to singular and why? Why does the narrator suggest that the defining inheritance of her family history is a “Refugee Reflex” (305) rather than any specific aspect of Vietnamese culture? Furthermore, why then does she go on to realize, upon reflection and as explained in the preface, that “Refugee Reflex” is an inadequate title and that The Best We Could Do better captured her concerns?

]]> 2022-02-17 21:57:09 UTC https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054151116 aphilipnguyen1 https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054151394 Throughout The Best We Could Do, being a child in a refugee family is the subject of much anxiety and introspection: as the narrator writes, “How much of ME is my own, and how much is stamped into my blood and bone, predestined?” (324). Near the end of the book, in a flash of mutual understanding, the narrator arrives at a poignant realization about her mother: “To let her be not what I want her to be, but someone independent, self-determining, and free, means letting go of that picture of her in my head” (319). Here, it is not the parent but the child who must learn to let go of a narrative of loss: even the story of the mother’s past is allowed its measure of freedom. Must history, intergenerational suffering, and familial/intimate expectations determine a life from the outset, or can outcomes be changed through conversation, reflection, and willed rewriting (however difficult)?

]]> 2022-02-17 21:57:24 UTC https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054151394 aphilipnguyen1 https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054151642 Bui’s preface notes that The Best We Could Do began as an academic “oral history” of her family before taking on its present form. In so doing, it tells their history out of chronological order, following instead an alternative logic guided by the shapes and elisions of her and her parents’ memories. What are the relative virtues of this form of history-writing - an “illustrated memoir” as the subtitle suggests? What might be the difference between an oral and a written/recorded history, between a micro-history based on multiple intertwined voices rather than a history based on institutionalized ‘grand or master narratives’? Do you think the narrator succeeds in her attempts to learn how her mother and father became the way they are?

]]> 2022-02-17 21:57:37 UTC https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054151642 aphilipnguyen1 https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054151901 Why do you think Bui choose the graphic novel to tell her story? In what ways is the graphic novel well-suited for a non-linear narrative? How do the sequential images of the graphic novel develop individual storylines, present complex stories and diverse perspectives? What is the relationship between form and content in this book? Think about how racial/national/gender difference is visually depicted in this book? How do the text and images work together, and what kind of argument is this text making? How do her aesthetics choices, drawing style, and the inclusion of family photos convey specific people with individual experiences? How does Bui create a complex and nuanced portrayal of Asian Americans -- refugees in particular?

]]> 2022-02-17 21:57:54 UTC https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054151901 aphilipnguyen1 https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054152089 Where and how in the narrative does the title The Best We Could Do first appear? What was the original context for this phrase? Does it resonate with new or different meanings throughout the book, and how? What is the effect of investing this phrase with several possible meanings? Who is the “we” in the title, and how do its several points of reference enable a reader to trace the intergenerational traumas and survivals at the heart of The Best We Could Do?]]> 2022-02-17 21:58:06 UTC https://padlet.com/aphilipnguyen1/aas372tbwcd/wish/2054152089