The stories, at first, were folklore. My grandmother would tell a ghost story, then she would say: oh, that was after the napalm. So through cycles o… - Ocean Vuong

The novel insists that there is power, and with it, agency, in survival—which includes the interracial tensions you speak of—because trauma is still an integral reality for queer folks. But these bodies do know joy, and they know it by acknowledging and honoring the tribulations they outlived. We often think of survival as something that merely happens to us, that we are perhaps lucky to have. But I like to think of survival as a result of active self-knowledge, and even more so, a creative force.

I think that might not have been enough, were it not for me being my family ’s only hope. Because they were also dying, in a different way: financially, mentally. And I thought, I can’t die. Literally I can’t die.

When I lost my mother, I thought, there's no point. Everything I have done, I'd done for her. I went to school for her. She gave me no pressure. You know, and it's important for me to say this because, you know, there's a stereotype of the Asian tiger mom. My mother was never such a mother. She said, whatever you want to do, as long as you're happy, you can do it. And worse comes to worst, she points to the desk. She works in a nail salon. She points to the desk beside her. There's always an empty desk in the salon. She says, you can sit down right here, and then we'll work together. So I had ultimate freedom to explore. And I think for me, you know, that freedom really was all to serve her. It was, how do I help my mother get out of the projects? Every immigrant has that dream.