The Magic Fish

“To me, language is a map to help you figure out where you are. If you can’t read the map, you’re lost.”

Hiền feels lost. She feels disconnected from both her home and from Tiền: she speaks more Vietnamese while he speaks more English. She’s working to improve her English by reading fairytales with Tiền in hopes of making their relationship stronger.

“Your bà ngoại used to tell me all kinds of old ghost stories and fairytales when I was a little girl. She and her sister.” 

Fairytales are a recurring motif throughout the book. They provide a way of communicating for Hiền and Tiền—as seen when Hiền changes the ending to the last fairytale–and a way of navigating their lives, such as when Hiền’s aunt recounts the story of the magic fish.

“And when Alera wasn’t busying herself with her new brothers—as they came to call themselves—she would tend to the little grove of peach trees in the garden.”

Peaches recur throughout the narrative, appearing in two of the three stories. They, along with blood, are the only things that break the typical color scheme, appearing as a rosy hue amidst the story’s blue.

“I mean, I want to. I tried looking up how to tell them at the library. The librarian and I couldn’t find the word for it in Vietnamese. […] It felt weird technically coming out to the librarian before I even told my parents. It’s all weird.”

Tiền feels between worlds: He’s not sure how to communicate to his parents in Vietnamese that he is gay, and he struggles with a fear of not being accepted by his parents and wanting to be his most authentic self.

“It could be fun! If you need something to wear, I’m sure we can rework some of my old dressy gowns. Or perhaps you’d be more comfortable in one of the boys’ uniforms?”

Gracia offers Alera something to wear for the prince’s party, where Alera and the prince will fall in love. Gracia’s offer of help parallels how Hiền wants to help her son attend the school dance. Though there is deep conflict in this novel, the characters also show great compassion for one another.

“I…don’t know how to describe it. I guess I’m not very good at talking about these things.”

Falling in love is one of the book’s recurring themes. Tiền asks his mother about what it is like to experience love. Hiền, though unsure of how to describe it, emphasizes that she loves Tiền and is always there for him.

“I just don’t want Tiền to miss out on things.”

When Tiền considers not going to the school dance, Claire does everything she can to make him feel comfortable enough to go. Despite Mrs. Flynn’s anti-gay response to his interest in boys, Tiền has a great time.

“Shepard’s death comes five days after his rescue from a Wyoming ranch…where he was robbed, beaten, tied to a fence, and left in almost-freezing temperatures for eighteen hours. This has sparked a debate over federal hate crime legislation.”

Matthew Shepard died in 1998. This news announcement marks the period in which the novel takes place. Shepard was a young gay man killed for his sexuality. When Tiền hears this story on the news, he becomes even more away of LGBTQ+ marginalization in society, adding to his fear that he will not be accepted.

“You know you’re the very first person in our entire family to go to a school dance. That’s exciting!”

Hiền wants Tiền to have a wonderful life, the kind of life she wasn’t able to have as a child. Tiền is shy at times, even timid, and so she tries to hype him up and get him excited for the school dance.

“The space between two shores is the ocean…and being caught in between feels like drowning. And, really, what is the point of tears among so much salt water?”

Hiền feels disconnected from her family back in Vietnam and her life in the United States. The symbol of water recurs to show her feelings of being adrift and stuck. She doesn’t think that she’ll get her happy ending and that she’ll just feel stuck forever. Her mother’s death makes her despair worse, to the point where she feels like drowning. However, this is a turning point for Hiền, as her aunt provides her great comfort when she returns to Vietnam. 

“I’m sorry. I really wanted us all to go back and visit as a family.” 

Vinh knows that their escape from Vietnam has taken a toll on Hiền. They had hoped to reunite with her family and to introduce Tiền to his grandmother and great aunt.

“I’d introduce Tiền to his grandmother, and she’d tell him all the stories she used to tell me. […] And Tiền would finally know we come from the same stories.”

Hiền sees storytelling as such a key part of her childhood. She believes that, if Tiền had been able to hear stories from her mother, he would have understood Hiền more. She has tried to repeat her childhood in reading fairytales with him, but still feels between worlds.

“This little book took me eight years to earn […] Was it worth the last eight years of my mother’s life? […] And what sort of daughter does that make me?”

Hiền feels a lot of guilt for leaving her mother in Vietnam. She was able to finally secure citizenship for herself and her son. The tradeoff was that she was unable to visit Vietnam until she had a US passport, otherwise she likely would not have been able to return to the United States. She isn’t sure for most of the novel whether it was worth it. Her aunt is quick to reassure her that Hiền’s mother was proud of her for making a life in the United States.

“Probably. They’re only stories. They’ll change when they need to.” 

Fairytales are a common motif throughout The Magic Fish, often seen as timeless tales. Hiền sees them as a way of relating to her son and a way for them to communicate, since she is trying to improve her English. However, as her aunt tells her, sometimes these stories change and adapt to circumstances. Hiền finally begins to understand this. As a result, she alters the ending of the final fairytale so that two women fall in love. It becomes her way of telling Tiền that she loves and accepts him for who he is.

“I feel like everybody’s problems are so much bigger than mine.”

Tiền feels distant from both his friends and family when he says this to Claire. Claire hugs him, making him understand that he can trust her, Julian, and his family while also validating him and his feelings.

“All the parents I’ve counseled described the heartbreak of their children coming out the same way. It always feels like a death in the family.”

Father Niles’s anti-gay statement has lasting effects on Tiền, making him feel further isolated.

“My past and present selves speak two different languages. It feels like I died on that boat. I’m still stuck in the middle of the ocean […] Far away from my mother…and far away from my son.”

The ocean symbolizes Hiền’s feeling of being alone. She feels isolated, stuck in between places, and believes this has made her both a bad mother and a bad daughter. Her aunt helps her to resolve some of these feelings.

“I’m afraid Tiền doesn’t think he can tell me things. He knows we’re from two different sides of the world […] I’m sure he can feel it. I know I do. And I wish it wasn’t that.”

Trust in family and friends is a common theme. Hiền wants Tiền to feel like he can rely on her. By the end of the novel, Hiền is able to show him that she supports him.

“How should I know? It’s an old, old story. Details change. Things change. And now this story is ours. Yours and mine.”

Hiền’s aunt wants to make it clear that sometimes stories adapt, and it is their right as tellers of these fairytales to adapt them. Hiền takes this lesson seriously when she alters the ending of the final story.

“It’s different for you. I don’t know how my parents will react. Now I don’t even get to be the one to tell them.”

When Julian points out that his parents just pulled him out of faith counseling, Tiền is quick to remind him that he has the privilege of being straight, and so it is automatic that he will be accepted. Tiền, however, has lost the ability to be the one to tell his parents that he’s gay.

“Mermaids cannot cry […] for what is the point of tears in a vast ocean of salt? And so she danced on.”

This emphasis on not crying in the ocean is repeated twice—once when Hiền discovers that her mother has passed away and again in the final fairytale. Hiền ensures that the mermaid gets a happy ending, falling in love with the female lead of the show. 

“I don’t know how to talk about this stuff…but I love everything that you are.” 

Hiền and Tiền are quiet on their way home from Hiền’s meeting with Mrs. Flynn. Hiền now knows that Tiền is gay, and she changes the ending of the fairytale so that two women fall in love, stunning Tiền. Hiền’s decision to alter the ending is meant to show Tiền that she loves and accepts him; it illustrates how she has taken her aunt’s advice that stories can change. 

“The stories start and end with the arc of an exodus, and we forget that things continue to happen ever after, and that ever after does not happen for everyone all at once.”

Nguyen has woven a story that is different from a typical narrative of immigration. He wants us to see that leaving one’s home country has myriad, lasting effects. Hiền has to reckon with the guilt she feels for leaving her mother and her despair of being from a different world than the one her son lives in.