The Refugees

In “The Americans,” Nguyen highlights the complex racial dynamics of American society by setting an American story in the foreign context of Vietnam. By telling the story from Carver’s viewpoint, Nguyen draws attention to the experience of an American Vietnam War veteran, the experience of an accomplished Black man in American society, and the misunderstandings that cause conflict between parents and their children. Carver is also dealing with Aging and Loss of Agency; he finds his mind is not as sharp as it once was, and, following a hip injury before the story’s events, he finds his physical ability degenerating as well.

Carver’s dislike for Khoi Legaspi, Claire’s boyfriend, stems from their roles concerning the Vietnam War. Carver was a bomber pilot, and he “would nev­er have ven­tured into Vi­et­nam, a coun­try about which he knew next to noth­ing ex­cept what it looked like at for­ty thou­sand feet” (92). Carver neither knows nor cares about the lives he has taken, even as Claire reminds him, “You bom­bed this place. Have you ever thought about how many peo­ple you killed? The thou­sands? The tens of thou­sands?” (102). While this is an oversimplification of Carver’s role in the war, it is the direct cause of Khoi’s line of work. During the Vietnam War, United States forces dropped 6 million tons of bombs in Vietnam, as well as over a million in neighboring Laos and Cambodia in secret campaigns.

While Carver appears to be above any negative consequences from his service, Nguyen hints at Carver’s anger issues and aloofness long being a source of conflict for his family; these issues hint at him being Haunted by Trauma from his time in the war. Researchers have found that, despite the disconnect many airmen have from the personal nature of ground combat, they still experience PTSD at significant rates. Modern drone operators, for example, suffer from high rates of PTSD, despite the detached nature of their operations. It is no stretch to say that Carver has suppressed his trauma. This trauma is visible in his anger and in his unsettling fever dream of being in an airliner, full of sleeping Asian people, without a pilot. It is also hinted at by their tour guide from Angkor Wat, “who had point­ed to a bridge flanked by the head­less stat­ues of deities and said, in a vague­ly ac­cu­sa­to­ry tone, ‘For­eign­ers took the heads’” (105).

In addition to the initial damage that bombing caused in these countries, an untold amount of unexploded ordinances still pepper the landscape, leading to casualties and injuries generations later. “Tom” and “Jerry,” the two young men who guard Khoi’s lab, are delayed victims of these bombings. These young men, like many throughout the region, lost limbs “play­ing with clus­ter bomblets when they were kids” (100). Khoi’s demining operation is focused on preventing such injuries. Carver takes objection to this; he experiences cognitive dissonance as he grapples with the disparity between his pride over his Air Force service and the unavoidable fact of the damage he caused, embodied in “Tom” and “Jerry’s” prosthetic limbs.

Carver’s feelings toward Legaspi are also outgrowths of his experience of race in America. Carver, a Black man, worked his way up in a racist society “by fo­cus­ing on his goal, as­cend­ing ever higher, re­fus­ing to see the sneers and doubt in his pe­riph­er­al vi­sion” (96). When Claire reflects on how out of place she felt as a half-Black, half-Asian woman growing up in America, Carver reminds her that he struggled, too. Carver remembers the constant feeling of being out of place:

In the one-room li­brary of the small town five miles down the road from his ham­let; at Penn State, which he at­tended on an ROTC scholar­ship; in flight school at Ran­dolph Air Force Base; in an air­man’s uni­form; in his B-52 and lat­er his Boeing air­lin­er, he was nev­er where he was sup­posed to be. (96)

Carver carved out a space for himself in a society that sought to diminish his successes by making him feel unwelcome in spaces where a white person would thrive. However, as a Black man, he is still able to fit a clearly defined role, even if that role is as the “trailblazer” or “disproving the stereotype” archetype. In Claire’s experience, there is little precedent or context for her as a biracial woman. This is what leads her to feel more at home in Vietnam than in America. As a foreigner, she has little more context than any other non-Vietnamese person and thus has a more clearly defined role in this new country. Ironically, the annoyance Carver feels about Khoi’s Asian appearance and white surname arises from the same expectations for racial disambiguation that American society demanded of Claire growing up, hinting at the way structural racism can be perpetuated even by those who are victimized by it.