I Love Yous Are For White People

“I Love Yous Are For White People: A Memoir." Lac Su, 2009. 

Some books have a certain texture that grabs you from the first page. They can be sparse and minimalist, making you fill in the gaps in your mind. Or, like this one, they can be a richly-detailed world you are immersed in from the start. I was drawn in by the vivid richness of this story. 

Lac Su tells his compelling life through the eyes of a child, in a way that transported me back to that time in my own youth. But his experiences are remarkably different — escaping Vietnam in the late 1970s to the "freedom" of America that turns out to be anything but. Housed in some of the worst neighborhoods of Los Angeles, with parents who struggle to understand the dangers around them, Lac does his best to survive. His parents, pushing him to gain the skills needed to progress, often make things worse rather than better, with their relentless, misguided pressure. It's frequently a harrowing tale, but it is told with an underlying humor that is intensely relatable. We've all had those moments where, as a kid, we've been dragged somewhere by parents with a single-minded mission, and even as children we know something is not quite right about their decisions. We've arrived at a new school, anxious to fit in and scared by the stares of the other kids. We've known parents to stifle us out of fear of the outside world, only to accidentally invite real danger right into the home. And how we hope for words of love from them, only to realize they are trying to show us love in other ways — sometimes bizarrely twisted but no less real. It's the classic I Love You "In My Own Way" that explains, but never excuses.

Many of us have also been in bad positions, and escaped to a blander, safer place — only to miss the thrill of the prior, dangerous places. We're lured back. That rarely goes well.

My only criticism of the book is that the part about his teen years ends too fast for me, jumping far ahead into the future. It's not a bad thing, however, wanting to know what happened next to all the people in the book. Perhaps Lac is writing a Part Two. I hope so.