Most recent public comments by Taylor Wise https://nowcomment.com/users/16921 https://nowcomment.com/documents/36344?scroll_to=406840 https://nowcomment.com/documents/36344?scroll_to=406840 I found this poem to be quite haunting, and not just because it contains ghosts (I'm sorry for the terrible pun). I think it speaks to a unique place in the minds of immigrant- or war-born children, a daunting choice between submerging oneself in memory and loss, or walking through it, alongside a past and a heritage you cannot hide from the world. I think it says a lot that this apparent child drowns the man instead of just ignoring him, as if walking by would not have been enough to get him to go away. The child must submerge the voice that tells him to submerge himself. The only way to be safe from the "dangerous man" is to attack him, and to continue walking with the ghosts of his family present with him at all times. This poem artistically amplifies the authors' argument that the Hmong people are not just a story, or a memory, or just another interchangeable tribe lost to war and history. The child and the father are real and present, returning home and making a mark on the land in a way that should not be misunderstood as the path of any other. Mon, 09 Nov 2015 18:23:00 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/36342?scroll_to=403205 https://nowcomment.com/documents/36342?scroll_to=403205 I am glad Nguyen clarifies that the stories that thrill may also be considered true stories alongside the more day to day stories of war. I don't think anyone would profit from dismissing the "gore galore" accounts of soldiers. But I agree that war is over-sensationalized, especially in American media and television, and we need to have a clearer understanding of the fact that our actions and indifference alike affect every war we're in and sometimes even those we're not. I think Nguyen also get at the idea that we sensationalize these stories in order to dissociate ourselves from the war; we tell the stories that are so different from our ordinary lives so that we cannot possibly think we have or will ever experience something like that. But the truth is, war is everywhere and the innate ability to do horrific and immoral things is present within everyone. So we allow ourselves to think that this "war" is something we will never experience, but, as Nguyen points out, we live it with every mundane purchase we make and are participants whether we like it or not. Fri, 06 Nov 2015 19:03:50 -0500