Listen, Slowly

Language is not only a way to communicate basic needs and facilitate transactions between humans; it is also deeply tied to culture and identity. We see this motif in the way Mai’s use of language changes throughout the story. When Mai begins to speak as the first-person narrator, she speaks like a typical Californian teenager. However, she makes a point to alert the reader that her mother is insistent she should expand her vocabulary by studying SAT vocabulary words each day, a practice which has Mai rolling her eyes:

Wait, is expunge an SAT word? Probably. Rewind. How about zapped? Zapped, good-bye. It’ll kill Mom when I come back espousing the vocabulary of a middle-schooler, which I am. Wait, is espouse SAT? I’m going to have to be vigilant. Vigilant? OMG, Mom has completely warped me (62).

Mai is content with her vocabulary and mostly speaking English, and though her parents want her to be bicultural, Mai has no intentions of becoming bilingual. The one person with whom Mai wishes she could speak in Vietnamese is her beloved grandmother, and when the pair travel to Vietnam together, Mai comes to understand the value of learning a second language, especially when it is the language of one’s ancestral roots.