Stealing Buddha’s Dinner: The “Ambitious” Stepmother

The paper will first illustrate the similarities of their rebellious personality and then moves to their identity dilemma. At last, the paper will conclude how Bich solves her identity problem with the influence  and help of her stepmother.  本文将首先说明了他们的叛逆性格的相似性，然后移动到自己的身份困境。最后，本文将总结碧如何解决她的身份问题与继母的影响和帮助。

In the memoir Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, Bich Minh Nguyen, a Vietnamese writer who went to the United States after the Vietnam War when she was a child, reflects her efforts in seeking her self-identity. Like other immigrants, she has difficulty in fitting into the mainstream American society. However, she also has to deal with domestic issue, resulting from her complicated relationship with her stepmother, Rosa. On the one hand, Bich hates Rosa because of her strict parenting. On the other hand, Bich resembles her stepmother in many ways. The paper will first illustrate the similarities of their rebellious personality and then moves to their identity dilemma. At last, the paper will conclude how Bich solves her identity problem with the influence  and help of her stepmother.  
Both Bich and Rosa show their rebellious and courageous traits during their past lives.  Bich doesn't like being confined to conventions and always desires for complete freedom. Bich is a good kid in terms of her academic performance and always gets good grades in the school. But deep in her heart, she loves to be a rebellious kid. “Privately I [Bich] admired the rebellious kids,... These kids refused to settle down or do what they were told...seemed to me marvelous nerve and self-knowledge” (74). While keeping a good academic record, Bich adores the challenges those kids have made and wishes she had the guts to do the same. Before Rosa enters Bich’s life, she can behave in whatever ways she likes because her uncles don't restrict her behaviors. They don’t care if Bich overeats or eats in a wild way in which a girl shouldn't act. However, after Rosa becomes the mother in the family, Bich and her sister cannot act so freely as they did before. “No longer would Rosa tolerate tricycles in the house at any time. Our toy closet was no more”(26). Bich then began to show her rebellion towards her stepmother, “I couldn’t wait to be grown up so I could be like them, eating whatever I wanted and doing whatever I wanted, without permission” (43). Bich’s mind is clearly calling for freedom and the right to do everything free from adults' restriction. She employs the word “whatever” twice to show how she wants to be independent and acts completely to her wish. 
Though it seems Rosa is the one who prevents Bich from being rebellious, there is also parallel description of Rosa's rebellious personality, shown in her earlier lifetime in Nguyen family. Rosa herself is a fighter who challenges traditional values. Coming from a Latino family, she defies the traditional life track, set for Latino women. She is the first to attend college and“...opened the way for her siblings to follow” (170). Bich explains to the readers that Latino girls are normally expected to get married after high school and become full-time housewives. Nevertheless, Rosa chose to continue her study by obtaining college education. The phrases emerging in the memoire such as “...being the first in the family” (170) or “...only one in the family” (171) manifest how Rosa is the unique and rebellious one in her family. Rosa's support on strike also demonstrates her rebelliousness. “Rosa loved a good strike” (121). The event refers to the time the teachers at Bich’s school went on strikes demanding higher wages. Parents normally hate such a strike for fear that it may affect their kids' study and they continue to send their kids for school. But  “Rosa refused to let any of us kids go to school until the teachers had returned” (121). Rosa is the only mother in the class who does so. Either is the education of herself or her stepdaughter's, Rosa is the rebellious one. 
 Although the idea of not going to school frightens Bich, Rosa’ unique behavior earns Bich's respect and brings them closer. When Rosa tells Bich the story about Cesar Chavez, a leader of the Californian migrant strikes, Bich says “Cesar Chavez appealed to my sense of justice, stirred from reading The Grapes of Wrath” (122). I believe it also shows Bich’s admiration for her stepmother even though she hated her when she is disciplined by Rosa. In spite of their difference, their share the same belief that people should fight for what they deserve. 
Rosa and Bich both confront identity issues despite that they come from different cultural backgrounds. They both have trouble fitting into another culture. For Bich, she is still struggling to fit into the American mainstream society and she also feels being an outsider in Vietnamese community from which she is from.  Most of the time her struggles are related to food which is a symbol for the Vietnamese community. She dislikes the food she is provided with because everyone else eats American food. She wants to eat real food that real  people eats and she claims that “...I wanted to be a real person, or at least make others believe that I was one” (6). Bich uses the term real people to show her self-disapproval of her own identity. Bich also realizes that she can’t restore her original identity as a Vietnamese when she went back to Vietnam, being a much older girl. At her relatives house her aunt says to her in Vietnamese “You are an American girl” (244). She feels awkward and different again but this time back it's in Vietnam. Bich also loathes her physical look because she looks different from others, which makes she appears to be the "fake one". She always has fantasies about changing her look and says “When I think of Grand Rapids...trying to make real the dream of the blond-haired girl with a Betty Crocker mother and a kitchen to match” (247). She clearly states her wish to be a typical white girl with blonde hair. Besides food and the look, she also desires for a different mother. She once wanted a mom unlike Rosa, because Rosa cannot be neither the mother of a blonde girl nor the mother of a Vietnamese girl. 
Rosa's struggle in fitting into the Vietnamese community is just parallel to Bich's incompatibility with American community. Although Bich mainly describes her struggles in fitting into the American community in her memoir, she occasionally mentions her observations regarding Rosa’s difficulties in blending into the Vietnamese community. After Rosa and Bich’s father get married, Bich’s father starts to take Rosa to many of his Vietnamese parties where he enjoys drinking and gambling with friends. “When he [Bich’s father] took her to parties she stayed in the kitchen with the other wives, trying to learn Vietnamese and get in on their conversations ” (36). She has problems fitting into the party because she does not speak their language and is not familiar with their culture. “She wanted my father’s friends to be her friends, his community to be hers” (35). As hard as Rosa tries, Rosa is still not accepted by Vietnamese community. She always appears as an outsider. She speaks loud, looks bigger in size, and does not know how to cook Vietnamese food. 
Despite the fact that Bich doesn’t like her stepmother at first, she gradually understands her as she gets older, and she starts to realize how much pressure is given to Rosa by the family. She says, “She would come home from work so exhausted she hardly had the energy, in the winter, to take off her boots, so I would do it for her” (213).  There is a clear change in Bich's opionion towards her stepmother. Their relationship starts to lead After knowing Rosa's own difficulty, Bich begins to show concern over her stepmother. Rosa presents herself as a rebellious mother in front of Bich by many of her deeds. She gradually becomes a strong woman in Bich’s eyes. Bich believes Rosa is. “...a strong woman, and we [Bich and her sister] knew it in every word she spoke to us” (39). Rosa does appear different in the Vietnamese community but she never stops working on being accepted. 
Although the relationship between Bich and Rosa has never been friendly or harmonious, Bich gradually accepts her stepmother. Rosa is a mirror in Bich’s life. While watching Rosa’s persistence and diligence in fusing into Vietnamese community, Bich knows it’s the spirit fighting for oneself. With Bich’s growth, she begins to accept her stepmother. WhenRosa brings Bich to visit her family, Bich desires to be part of her family. “As much as I hadn’t bargained for a whole new family, I did want to be accepted into the group” (171).
 Rosa functions as a mirror in Bich’s life. She cannot help Bich much in fitting into American community, but she constantly reminds Bich of her Vietnamese identity and makes Bich ponder over her identity issue seriously. " Our identities changed. We were Vietnamese, we were refugees, we were Americans” (251). Encouraged by Rosa’s rebellious deeds and effort in seeking the identity, Bich makes a firm decision for herself to deal with her identity dilemma and figure out where she truly belongs. In the last chapter Bich finally claims to be an American, “…that moment, the panic and fear, the push to leave his(Bich’s father) country and aim for an unknown land, is perhaps his gift. It is my Americanese"(251). 最后这段的引号你改一下哦，我是iPad，不一样。
Work Cited:
Nguyen, Bich Minh. Stealing Buddha's Dinner. S.l.: Penguin, 2008. Print.
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