Inside Out And Back Again

Starting on September 2nd, each member of the family has work or school. Mother has a factory job as a seamstress, and Brother Quang will work as a car mechanic. Hà, Brother Vũ, and Brother Khôi each must repeat the last level of enrollment in different school buildings. Hà is concerned about being the oldest in the 4th grade. She also has questions about friends and lunchtime. Mother tells her to be open-minded and “agreeable.”

On the first morning, Hà’s teacher does not know how to pronounce Hà’s name, as the teacher “fakes a laugh” when she hears it. Hà sees white and black students in her classroom, but she is the only Vietnamese; in the cafeteria, she sees that the students seem to sit by ethnicity: “On one side / of the bright, noisy room, / light skin. / Other side, / dark skin” (143). As “someone medium,” she doesn’t know on which side she belongs. The lunch itself—a hot dog smeared with red and yellow (the colors of the Vietnamese flag)—throws her as well, and she waits out the lunch period in the hall.

A boy with pinkish skin and white hair torments Hà on her first day, poking her arm, face, and chest and following her part-way home with harassing yells. Mother arrives home with an injury from the sewing machine to her fingers; Quang throws his shirt when he arrives. Hà keeps quiet about her day until everyone is asleep; then she wakes Brother Vũ to tell him about Pink Boy. Brother Vũ tells Hà that when a boy called him a name earlier that day, he (Brother Vũ) did a fly-kick near the boy’s face—not to hurt him, but to stop him from name-calling. Brother Vũ refuses to teach Hà fly-kicks “with her temper,” but seeing Hà’s tears, he agrees to teach her some self-defense moves.

The next morning, Brother Khôi takes Hà to school on his bicycle. He tells her that he will give her rides home in the afternoon as well. At school, though, Hà’s days worsen. She hides in the bathroom at lunch and recess and does not make eye contact in class. She feels unintelligent learning English. She feels far more comfortable and confident learning defensive martial arts from Brother Vũ (whom Hà must call “Vũ Lee”). He teaches Hà dứng tân, a defense posture that focuses on observation; she is “practicing / to be seen” (161).

After a few incidents in which unknown vandals egg and toilet paper the family’s property, Mother thinks meeting the neighbors will help. The cowboy introduces the family to neighbors up and down the street. The first three neighbors do not accept the family; they close and slam doors. The fourth, however, is Miss Washington, who greets them happily and arranges to tutor them in language lessons. Hà enjoys Miss Washington’s lessons and the snacks she serves as rewards. With increased knowledge, though, comes the realization that students at school tease her for her name. They also harass her with comments about eating dog meat and living in the jungle.

Mother, Hà, and the brothers attend the cowboy’s church and take part in the Christian baptism rite. At home, though, Mother requests alone-time for her chanting ritual. She has no gong but uses a spoon against a glass. She has no incense, so she burns orange peel instead. Hà misses the sounds and smells from home “that once calmed [her]” (174). Thinking Hà is asleep, Mother later reveals her sadness through whispers aloud to Father: “Come home, / come home and see how our children have grown” (175). She also confides to Father that trying to resettle the family in a new place is harder than she expected.