Catfish_and_Mandala

Catfish and Mandala The book “Catfish and Mandala” by Andrew Pham relates a lot to include stories and situations throughout my childhood that I can relate toand young adult life. PhamHe vividly explains vividly his life in America along with his travels back to the homeland. Through his journey to Vietnam, Pham discovers himself and hisexplains to us his life, which in some cases is similar to the identity, issues regarding educational expectations, and cultural conflict in America here in America for me. Reading the book I see Pham and the situations he is put in, also seeing myself, but the only difference is the way he and I handle the scenarios given at hand. Through the essay you will see how our lives are similar but yet different. Pham travels to Vietname to search for his roots in hopes to construct his identity.For Pham in the search of his identity he flies to Vietnam to ride his bike, and also to find his roots. As he first gets off the airplane he is already is immediately receiving dirty aware of others who looklooksat him disdainfully because he is a “viet-kieu” which means foreign Vietnamese. Then catfish, mandala, pham, because, vietnamese, korean, through, school, am, america, life, different, vietnam, people, parents, out, himself, conflict, back, american, while, identity, say, private, one, last, high, first, family, expectations, cultural, conflicts, being, been, asians, although, about