"Stealing Buddha's Dinner"

I think it is interesting how Bich wants to blend in and be as "American" as possible, even if it means denying and being ashamed of her Vietnamese heritage. Because she moves to the States at such a young age to escape the horror of Communism, she does not identify with Vietnam but with the America she grew up in. She is constantly trying to be seen as "normal" and she even romanticized American's processed cuisine. I thought it was funny that her father loved Burger King and it became a speciality in the eyes of his daughters. Although, Bich preferred McDonalds to Burger King because it was the quintessential American food. She even goes so far as to say that she wants to be a "real person" like the white kids she goes to school with. She sees food as a way to express your culture and background and she is ashamed of her cultural cuisine because it marks her as different from the majority. She talks about how all she ever wanted was to be invisible because she was forced to grow up in a place where she was constantly identified as different and foreign, even though she was as "American" as the rest of the children growing up around her.