Quote

I have a funny story to tell about English and how I came to fall in love with the language. I was desperate to fit in and spoke English all the time. Trouble was, in my household it was a no-no to speak English because somehow it is disrespectful to call parents and grandparents you - impersonal pronouns are offensive in Vietnamese.

Andrew Lam

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Andrew Lam
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: January 1
Businessperson
Writer
Republic of Vietnam
Funny
Fit
Grandparents
Language
English
Grandparent
Fall
Parents
Spokes
Speak
Trouble
Spoke
Tell
Parent
Offensive
Pronouns
Stories
Came
Household
Impersonal
Time
Call
Desperate
Disrespectful
Love
Story
Somehow
Vietnamese

More quotes by Andrew Lam

Image
[The immigrant] becomes a kind of insurance policy against the effects of the recession. By blaming him, the pressure valve is regulated in times of crisis ... What we have now is a public mindset of us versus them, and an overall anti-immigrant climate that is both troubling and morally reprehensible.
Andrew Lam
Image
I've been writing short stories for twenty years now, on and off ever since I was in the creative writing program at San Francisco State University.
Andrew Lam
Image
As a Vietnamese refugee who became an American writer, I can tell you that you matter, that your sadness matters, the story of how you survived and triumphed matters. For every story that belongs to you, in time, belongs to America.
Andrew Lam
Image
Though I later found a career as a journalist and an essayist, fiction is my first love and I never left it, even though there was no easy way to make a living from it.
Andrew Lam
Image
In non-fiction you have to stay true to historical events, be they personal or national .
Andrew Lam
Image
I think in a larger sense, immigrant narrative is comprehensive and speaks to the core of human experience.
Andrew Lam
Image
That experience of losing home, longing for home, that yearning for meaning and rootedness and identity in a floating world, it's what often makes an immigrant story into an American story .
Andrew Lam
Image
In the war on terrorism, the immigrant is often the scapegoat.
Andrew Lam
Image
The collection is a labor of love and devotion, and whenever I found free time from my journalism work, I'd work on one story or another, or at least sketch out my characters, and research various issues related to my characters' dilemmas.
Andrew Lam
Image
Missing from the national conversation are voices of pro-immigration reformers and civil rights leaders, who can speak on behalf of those who have no voice.
Andrew Lam
Image
America's story is largely an immigrant story. That hasn't changed since the Pilgrims ate their first turkey some four hundred years ago, and they were the original boat people.
Andrew Lam
Image
I am glad to see the wheels are moving at last toward comprehensive immigration reform after last year's election. I am glad that immigrants are speaking up.
Andrew Lam
Image
Precious things lost are transmutable. They refuse oblivion. They simply wait to be rendered into testimonies, into stories and songs.
Andrew Lam
Image
I am hopeful that the pendulum swings toward seeing immigrants in favorable terms once more.
Andrew Lam
Image
It's unfortunate that the country of immigrants has turned its back on immigrants. The atmosphere after 9/11 is toxic.
Andrew Lam
Image
Art is the lesser sister to medicine. It aims to heal.
Andrew Lam
Image
I thought, Wow, English is like magic. It not only shattered my voice, it changed me physiologically. I believed this for months ... There's magic in the language. I never fell out of the enchantment.
Andrew Lam
Image
Isn't the first story told in the West about the Fall? Adam and Eve were immigrants too from somewhere, a lost Eden, a paradise lost. We all now are so mobile, so nomadic .
Andrew Lam
Image
Today, more people are crossing various borders in order to survive, thrive, change their lives. Even if you don't cross the border, with demographic shifts, the border sometimes crosses you.
Andrew Lam
Image
When a well-rounded character takes over, he doesn't lecture you about his history and how he is misunderstood. He lives his life, does things that are unexpected, and makes you laugh and cry because of his human flaws and foibles.
Andrew Lam