Cinematic depictions of wars fought by Americans in Asia usually focus on the physical aspects of the action: the violence and momentous combat. Every now and then, a film will come along that challenges the glorification of such violence; however, both types of films tend to use the point of view of an American soldier limited to the physical and temporal parameters of war (as in Apocalypse Now or Platoon). Absent from these depictions are Native voices and a dialogue about the lasting effects of the war that follows the Natives long after the American troops have packed their bags and left. Le thi diem thuy's The Gangster We Are All Looking For fills this gap with its semi-autobiographical narrative of the author's family's refugee experience while fleeing Vietnam to the United States. The heart of the novel centers on his coming of age among a waxing and waning group of relatives. The work focuses on how the war and its repercussions form a paradoxical bond between the narrator and her parents that keeps them together but at the same time distances them. In particular, by examining the relationship between the narrator and Ba, we can see how the events and memories surrounding the Vietnam War haunt and profoundly affect their lives. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The narrator's relationship with Ba is deeply rooted in and influenced by events that occurred during and immediately after the war. His conception of his father is inseparable from the war: "My first memory of my father's face is framed by the twisting barbed wire of an army camp in South Vietnam" (82). This is not the first normal memory a child has of their father and as such sets the tone for the rest of the relationship. Like so many other novels about war, a soldier's duty takes him away from his family, putting a strain on family bonds. As Thuy points out, “My first memories of my father are always of him leaving. He didn't live with us, he was alone, my mother reminded me and my older brother with her firm voice, visiting” (104). Interestingly, the narrator rarely sees Ba as a soldier, partly because Ba never seems to talk about those experiences with her. Instead, she must have learned these details from another source (perhaps Ma) and then fills in the rest with her imagination. As a result, the narrator never fully knows the source of Ba's pain, but clearly there are traumatic memories in his past that stick. to him. In language commonly employed with soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), we get a sense of Ba's war trauma. On page 103, Thuy writes: “He jumped from planes and disappeared for weeks in jungles and hill towns. His friends fell around him, first during the war and then after the war, but somehow only he managed to crawl here, on all fours, into this life. Such an experience certainly has serious consequences for a person's personality. Even though Ba survived the war and fled to the United States, we see that the war “was [his] youth and how when it ended it was like waking up from a long dream or a long nightmare. And what war was like in the past” (113). Even if the war is a thing of the past, Ba cannot overcome this "long nightmare". We can glimpse this nightmare in a passage where Ba looks at a woman on the news: “Now he had the feeling that the woman was pointing to bodies, invisible bodies, under the grass. As he directed the camera's eye toward the grass, he continued to cry over what he couldn't see and what he couldn't stop crying about.see” (152). The last sentence of this quote parallels Ba's experience. Replacing the woman with Ba, we get the sentence: “Ba kept crying because of what [the “it” here can refer to the narrator, other family members, or us readers] couldn't see and what she couldn't stop to see.” Later, Thuy tells us more explicitly what Ba can't stop seeing: “the bodies floating among the rice fields during the war. All those badly burned bodies” (157). The tragedy of Ba's experience is that the horrors that replay in his mind are his alone. He is unable to share these memories, so there is no one to help him when he cannot move forward. Although the narrator cannot see what Ba sees, he can sense her inability to move forward and the resulting gradual breakdown, which is the most directly pushing and pulling part of their relationship. When they escape Vietnam, Thuy writes: “I don't remember anyone else except my father... He picked me up and kissed my hair. He caressed my face and rocked me, even though I wasn't crying. She doesn't seem to quite register the trauma everyone else feels in having to escape Vietnam, and Ba is the one who needs comfort. In a way, it seems that the roles of child and parent are reversed: “When I touched my finger to his spine, he curled up on himself like an anemone. It was then, as he pulled away from me, that I realized that the crying was coming from” (109). I think the phrase “he walked away from me” contains both a literal and figurative description of their relationship. In the second half of the novel, there is the recurring symbol of an unanswered telephone ringing in the house. Ba avoids answering the phone, continuing to watch television or choosing to water the plants outside, or doing anything to harvest them. On page 137, Thuy offers insight into Ba's phone breakout: “The phone was ringing and my father was afraid that instead of the usual telemarketers offering credit cards, it was someone calling from Vietnam. His fear was vivid and, although probably unfounded, pinned him to the bed like a weight. An unanswered telephone that rings continuously makes many people nervous. There's something about the impending conversation and repetitive ringing that insists on being answered. Yet this is not seen in Ba, whose greatest fear is the literal and figurative past that calls him, insisting with its constant ringing for an answer. This metaphor aptly describes Ba's avoidance of dealing with the past productively, which produces its unraveling. As is often seen, veterans with PTSD may turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism, which the narrator perceives in Ba. On p.100 he says: “Growing up, there were nights when I would hear him staggering in the alley outside my bedroom window. I listened to him as he faced the air, fought invisible enemies on the ground, punched his own shadow. Drunk, he shouted: “I'm not afraid! Come out and fight me. I'm here!" Ba is struggling with his demons, but, like invisible enemies, his demons are as elusive as the shadow - ever-present but untouchable. Ba's spiral out of control must certainly put a strain on his relationship with the narrator. He does not sleep, instead "[driving] to the beach and [spinning] the wheels of the car in the wet sand, daring to drive into the sea" and "becomes prone to anger... [destroying] televisions, VCRs, [ chasing] friends and relatives down the street, brandishing hammers and knives in broad daylight” (115-116). We see that Ba begins to physically abuse the narrator and presumably Ma. In one passage, the narrator runs away to a shelter after one of Ba's rampages –.