April 2018 Meeting: The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

Wednesday’s meeting about Thi Bui's The Best We Could Do was as brilliant as this picture. In addition to this being the first graphic memoir the club has ever picked, this was also the first time many of the members had ever read a graphic memoir. This was also the first time my mother—sitting front and center—attended a meeting. For two hours, we talked about the importance of telling our own stories, and what happens when our stories are in the hands of others. Growing up, many of the images and stories Bui had seen and heard of her homeland, Vietnam, had been filtered through an American lens. Movies like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, had not only romanticized the war but had presented Vietnam and the people who lived there, without depth. And while it’s easy to dismiss the way people are presented in the media as “it’s just entertainment,” Bui’s graphic memoir challenged us to think about how the repetitive images of stock characters can render real lives into myth. This book was written and drawn in resistance to many of the half-told stories told about Vietnam; but the book was also written and drawn to honor her parents who, being human, did what they could with what they had. When telling a story, The Best We Could Do is a reminder that how we see ourselves, in a story, matters as much as what we hear. We were grateful for the lesson.