Andrew Pham

1. Andrew Pham Qing Wang Fatima Nguyen Robert Wood He Zhu Joe Lui Hui She

2. Biography of Andrew X. Pham • Childhood -He was born in PhanThiet. -He spent his younger years in the Red River Delta. -He grew up in a rich family before the war. -The childhood dream of the author was to return to Vietnam to attend Saigon University.

3. Family Background • Andrew’s father worked double shifts as a school teacher. During the war between the North and the South, his father earned money by working for the Republic army in the propaganda department. • Andrew’s mother did laundry for her neighbors to earn extra money to support their struggling household. • 6 children: Chi, Andrew, Huy, Tien, Hieu, and Kay (last child born in Louisiana)

4. Educational Background • Attended UCLA for aerospace engineering (1990) • Graduated from UCLA in Aeronautical Engineering but wanted to be a writer • He decided to take creative writing courses at De Anza College. He consider this time his “wondrous years”

5. Refugee Status • After sneaking out of Vietnam through Malaysia, Andrew, his mother and father, his aunt Dung, his older sister Chi, and his three younger brothers Huy, Tien, and Hien took a fishing boat that later fell apart and were rescued by an Indonesian freighter ship to escape out of Vietnam. • The family stayed in Jakarta, a refugee facility in Indonesia, for 18 months • Then The First Baptist Church of Shreveport in Louisiana helped the family with airfare, finding his dad a job, and finding a place to stay.

6. A two-wheeled voyage to find his identity.

7. In1991,Andrewpublishedabooknamed “CatfishandMandala” ThisbookisabouthisjournalinViet Nam,wherehewasborn. Hispurposewasfindinghisidentityandroots.Becausehe is a Vietnamese American, it was difficult for him to identify himself.Hedescribedhimselfasapersonwith a lostsoul. Inordertofindhis“soul”, hedecidedtotravel. Life in America

8. Travel to Identity • Andrew arrived in Hanoi, the city of his father’s origins. • During the Voyage, he tried to rethink his identity • At last, he realized that finding his true identity was more difficult than he imagine it to be. “He started his journey to find his roots, his essence, but instead Andrew Pham learned something else entirely His travels carved into him experiences and memories that altered his outlook on life, as living is prone to do.” • Therefore his voyage to explore himself will go on and his value will change as time goes by

9. Travel to Identity Con’t • Andrew returned home in Saigon, and realized that he forgot a lot of things. He started to collect memories of where his father stayed, because everything had changed. He felt he couldn’t find his roots anymore. People in Vietnam didn’t really like him because he was a Vietnamese American. He realized the place he came from was not the same from what he could remember when he was a child. • Andrew visited his birth place, however it did not help him find his identity. Finally he realized searching for the past is painful and decided it was time to stop his search.

10. Work Cited • http://www.andrewxpham.com/ • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_X._Pham

11. The End