The Gangster We Are All Looking For

  Americanization. How does the narrator assimilate to American culture and learn American English? Do she and her parents have any challenges? A persistent theme of the literature of immigration is that children act as parents since they serve as translators for parents who don’t know the language of the adopted country. To what degree does this description match the narrator’s situation? When covering the literacy process, note what word gets repeated. Also, treat the anecdote with the Mexican baker, when Ba and the narrator watch another recent immigrant’s process of language learning. How do the family members stay connected to Vietnamese and, more generally, to Asian culture?