When she moves she has to forget some of her vietnamese culture and adapt to western culture “ Until you children master English, you must think, do, wish for nothing else, not your father or your old house not your old friends not our future” (Lai 117). This shows that when they moved they had to change their priorities to learning English. “You will eat lunch at school with your friends. What friends? You’ll make some. What if I can’t.”(Lai 137) Ha has to start school over in America and not only learn the culture and now school but make new friends in a place unknown to her. “Your father is truly gone”(Lai 250) Just like other refugees Ha has lost loved ones to