The Best We Could Do

A really personal way to learn about Bui's family throughout the Vietnam War and what it took for them to immigrate to the US and the trauma involved in her family history that she's now reckoning with as she has her own child. Definitely a good YA read to pair with learning about the 60s/70s and the Vietnam War. The art and color palette is effective as is her use of movement through panels. Teen readers might need to get talked/walked through the opening Chapter, “Labor” but the rest will appeal, hold interest, and give personal insight and context to history.

Thi Bui tells the story of her family's journey from Viet Nam to the United States, but also the journeys each of her parents and she herself take from childhood to parenthood. 

The stories here are personal and real. This is very character driven. It's the people in the story that I like most. 

I have never faced living in a war torn country, moving to a new home with a whole new culture and language. Further, I knew next to nothing about Viet Nam. Reading these stories was enlightening. The fact that these are also stories about individuals who were trying to find their ways in life with flawed parents with issues they didn't understand and trying to find their way in life is something I understand and identify with. The blend of these two journeys is a brilliant storytelling technique that makes for more than just learning about someone. It is an intimate look into another person's life that makes them less a random stranger and more of a real person I can identify with and respect. 

A wonderful and at times hard to read graphic novel. The narration style reminds me of Maus. The visuals are quite striking, Thi Bui using just a couple of colours in a great way.

I didn't know much about the Vietnam war but thanks to this book I learned how horrible this period was. Definitely worth a read!

Vietnam was a curse word during my childhood and teen years. I have friends and relatives and neighbors who died there, without ever really knowing much about it.

This book is a story of Vietnam and the story of a family from Vietnam and the story of a girl from Vietnam. It's full of beauty and happy moments and awful times and death and cruelty. And it's told in graphic novel format, with powerful illustrations to accompany the words.

THE BEST WE COULD DO is a poignant graphic novel & memoir by Thi Bui, tracing her family's escape from war-torn Vietnam, their new life as American immigrants, & the effect of both of these experiences on her identity as a first-time mother.

The writing is beautiful & hits you right in the gut:

”Being my father's child, I, too, was a product of war. And being my mother's child, I could never measure up to her.”

gorgeous

”But maybe being their child simply means that I will always feel the weight of their past.”

I read this because I've heard wonderful things about it and I thought it might be a good choice for a summer reading option for a HS world history class. I don't think it's a great choice for that class - I'm not sure that there's a lot of teen appeal? But, it's incredible. The limited color palate really works well for the stories and it manages to be sad but hopeful at the same time. I loved it.

Thi has set out to uncover and document her family's history.

This is a story of resilience, the human desire to live, survive, be understood, be seen... to be.
This was incredibly hard to read on so many levels. War is always hard to read about and more so when it is a first person recounting of it but this is equally as hard because of the family dynamics depicted in the pages. It was so sad. There is so much to dissect and take in but it feels wrong to do so because this is a real person and real experiences most likely going through it still.

I don't even know what to say... This was a lot.

(Originally published on inthemargins.ca)

Growing up, I remember there being a series of accordion folders in my parents' closet, each clearly labeled with the names of every single person in the family, most full and overflowing, all occupying a space where they could be easily found, easily accessed, and easily moved.

As I grew older, the folder with my name began to fill up as well. I learned at an early age that inside each of these accordion folders was our lives: our important documents—birth certificates, immigration papers, etc.—as well as some mementos that were worth keeping like commendations, certificates, and records of accomplishments. It was unsaid, but it was clear: if there was any trouble, these accordion folders were to help solve our problems, to keep us safe.

I always thought that this folder habit was just a manifestation of my dad's obsession with being organized. After reading Thi Bui's The Best We Could Do, I now know that this was a common practice for those who were used to being displaced, for those who lived in a space of uncertainty.

It's a story I've told many times before, a story of how my family arrived in New York and we shared our apartment with a dozen other people, some leaving as they were able to find work in the city, more arriving after their paperwork to leave East Africa came through. The house was always full, never quiet, never still, always exciting.

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the sacrifices of my parents and what they had to go through to in order for me to live the life that I have right now. I'm questioning myself more and more, wondering if my life reflects and respects the hardships they had to endure; I wonder how they would answer, truthfully, if someone asked them if it was all worth it.

The Best We Could Do brought those questions back into the forefront of my daily reflection: have I lived up to the hopes and dreams of my parents when they first left their home country to come here? They will say yes, but honestly and truly, can any of us ever live up to the hardships they suffered, no matter what we do?

How can I honor their sacrifices, their decisions, their tumult? How can I fill that accordion folder with things that will make them proud?

(Originally published on inthemargins.ca)