Surviving Childhood

To suffer a tormented childhood is perhaps the cruelest of all fates to befall a child. Kien Nguyen was one of these unlucky children. In his debut work The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood, Nguyen details his harrowing childhood as a boy in 1975, after the fall of Saigon, until 1985 as a young man leaving for the United States in the Orderly Departure Program. In the memoir, Nguyen's once wealthy family is subject to humiliation and poverty in the new Communist regime in postwar Vietnam due to their former "capitalist lifestyle." Treated as outcasts in their own community, they endure hardship after hardship. Nguyen, a child of mixed race (his father was an American G.I.) faces further abuse and mistreatment, such as beatings and taunts like "half breed" and "bastard." Throughout the memoir, Nguyen struggles to find himself and to create a meaningful life.

Through his highly cinematic storytelling and his vivid sensory details, Nguyen recounts, with aplomb, his intense struggle to survive as "the unwanted." Nguyen's and his family's status as outcasts within their own community is relayed to the reader with deep pathos yet with the voice of an innocent. Nguyen has the ability to draw the reader into the story with him. The reader lives through Nguyen's poverty and starvation with him, and the reader feels the pain of the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse Nguyen suffers at the hands of his cousins and community as if it all were happening to him or her.

Nguyen's recollection of acute childhood details is impeccable such as "the smell of candy on his grandfather's breath," "the beautiful bronze glow" of his beloved Kim's body, and the "pungent taste of the soursop fruit." These details, along with the few small joys Nguyen experiences as a child (a puppy, the affection of his grandfather, and the friendship of Loan - the family's servant girl) allow the reader to feel Nguyen's exceptional will to persevere and to see the good that exists in such an envelope of misfortune.

Nguyen witnesses killing and death throughout the memoir (the killing of his dog, the death of his neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Dang, the death of his cousin Moonlight to tuberculosis, and his grandmother's slow death due to cancer and infection). When Nguyen is captured and forced to spend time in a refugee reeducation camp, he must overcome filth, sickness, and even more brutal injustices. Nguyen captures all these events through his skillful, powerful writing. All these unfortunate happenings rob Nguyen of his innocence and force him to grow up long before his time.

Nguyen is caught between two cultures throughout the work. He must come to terms with his Amerasian roots and must learn to overcome the violations inflicted upon him by society because of his mixed heritage. As Nguyen grows, he begins to forge an identity for himself as son, brother, student, and writer. Despite his endured hardships as "the unwanted," Nguyen excels at what ever he does, setting the path for his eventual success as a published writer and dentist in New York City. Once again, Nguyen is adept at capturing this inner struggle and making it ring true for the reader.

The Unwanted strikes an emotional chord, but it also gives the reader insight into an area of postwar Vietnam about which much has been left unspoken - the plight of thousands of Amerasian children. Nguyen writes: "My reason for writing this book at first was purely personal. I just wanted to heal myself. But, as the story progressed, I thought more and more about the other Amerasians I had encountered. I recalled the sadness of their desperate lives, which I had both witnessed and heard described in my early years. As dark as my memoir may be, it is not unique by any means. It's estimated that more than fifty thousand Amerasian children shared my fate, or worse. Their stories were all too common ones of terror and repression, abuse and neglect, strength, and ultimately - for the lucky ones - survival. I kept writing in hopes that these innocent victims' lost childhoods might finally be mourned, and their buried secrets at last revealed."

In the memoir's epilogue, Nguyen states that he has suffered years of nightmares and mental torments from his troubled childhood. Nguyen's grandfather offers Nguyen the following advice before Nguyen journeys to America: "If you want to achieve happiness, don't dwell on the past. Instead start living. What is the point of obsessing over something that has already happened, and that you cannot change? Live! And be merry." Nguyen has tried to live by this advice since he left Vietnam. Upon finishing this memoir, Nguyen says he has been able to "let go of the horrors; the nightmares have ceased."

The reader will enjoy the suspenseful, powerful journey Nguyen has taken in The Unwanted and will surely find inspiration in his ability to survive his difficult childhood. One can only hope there will someday be a sequel.

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Review of: The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood by Kien Nguyen, 2002.

Work cited: Nguyen, Kien. The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood. 2001. Boston: Back Bay, 2002.

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Published on 9/2/06