Tish Adams
Dr. C. White
LITR 4333
April 22, 2002 

Old World Versus New World

Monkey Bridge, written by Lan Cao, shows a generational conflict between the mother and daughter who migrate to the United States from Vietnam in 1975. Other examples of generational conflicts can be seen in Richard Rodriguez's from Hunger of Memory and "El Patron" written by Nash Candelaria.  The Old World ideas can cause problems among the relationships between the first generation immigrant and the new found freedom of the second generation immigrant.  Cao delves into the struggles that comes from these two generations converging to become satisfied with their own existences.  The daughter must try to respect her mother and still be able to assimilate to the dominant culture to be accepted in the United States.  The relationship between the mother and the daughter, Mai, shows how immigrants are torn between their past in the World and having a fresh start to their future in the New World.

Lan Cao’s interview with Martha Cinader in November 1997 describes the way she felt about certain aspects of the book.  When Cinader asks what, symbolically, does the title Monkey Bridge represent in the book Cao says,

[...] it’s [...] the transition here within this family’s story from being immigrants to becoming American[...]  I think in many ways this is a story that is very classically the immigrant story.  I think these bridges that immigrants of all kinds in this country have crossed are generational.  I mean, I think the process doesn’t start with the parent or the grandparent’s generation and end there.  It goes down several generations.  (Cinader)

In the immigrant narrative the main reason for the Old World generation to leave their homeland for the New World is because they are trying to escape their homeland to come to a "free" country.  When the children come to the New World they begin to assimilate to the dominant culture and lose much of their first world customs.  This is where conflicts develop between the inhabitants of both worlds.  For the elder it is in their heads and hearts and as for the younger it may be in their heads, but easily forgotten.  The Old World customs are usually harder to keep in the New World and easier methods are used.  The conflict in Lao’s book is generational because the grandfather was to blame for the mother’s ultimate relationship with Mai.  The mother lied to Mai and therefore caused her ill feelings toward her family and her life.

Mai, being a teenager when she arrived from Vietnam into the United States, easily learned the language and began to assimilate quickly to the dominant culture.  She described how she tried to respect her mother but also had to realize that Americans do not see the same way her Vietnamese culture saw. Mai and her mother were at a rental office and her mother wanted her to tell the manager to give them another apartment because the antenna across the street threw a shadow across their apartment window.  Her mother thought their apartment had been hexed with a curse, and bad fortune and bad health would follow.  Mai thought if only she would have the courage to defy her mother she would not be so embarrassed in front of the manager.  "[...] but  thirteen well-bred years of Confucian ethics had taught me the fine points of family etiquette and coached me into near-automatic obedience"(Cao 21).  Mai knew that she had to obey her mother, but she also knew how to use "New World tricks" in her favor so that Americans would not look badly on her Vietnamese heritage.  Mai told version of the problem to the manager.  She explained that her mother saw a snake and she wanted to move into another apartment because she was afraid to go into the bathroom. (22)  She knew that her explanation would be more acceptable than that of her mother’s.  Cao writes about how the child must be the one to help the parent live among the dominant culture in the New World. 

Mai says, "[...] and I was the one who would help my mother through the hard scrutiny of ordinary suburban life.  [...]  I was the one who told my mother what was acceptable or unacceptable behavior"  (Cao 35).  In a way, as Mia explains, she and her mother had to switch positions.  She was like the mother figure and her mother had child-like qualities, especially in the area of language. (35)

In "El Patron", Senor Martinez and his son, Tito, have similar situations where the son does not view the Old World ethics as the father does.  They struggle to understand each other.  The father does not want the son to go against the country and try to get out of registering for the draft.  The father has very strong views and says, "the men in our family have never shirked their duty!"  (217) Tito’s father blames his New World thoughts on the college he attends.  The father makes the remark, "I should never have let him go to college, that’s where he gets such crazy radical ideas"  (217).  At the end of the story it says that Papa still believed in el patron, El Papa, and Dios and now he could see that Tito believed in them, too.  (221)  Even though Tito had his own ideas and views related to the way he should act in order for him to become a better person in his own eyes, he also could understand the way his father felt about honor. He just became honorable in his own way, so the father understood honor was a state of mind.  Similarly, in Monkey Bridge, Mai’s mother said, "in Vietnam, the saying used to be ’Parents point, children sit.’  In this country, it’s become ‘Children point, parents sit.’  It’s about time I get used to the American way, no?" (60)  Even though she said these words she was still unconvinced in the New World and its ways. 

As did the father in "El Patron" had a hard time understanding why his son wanted to attend college, so does Mai’s mother when she says, "that is why she [Mai] wants to leave home to go to college.  So she can have a new beginning unrestricted by a past life"(Cao 169).  Mai learns how to act to ensure her acceptance by the dominant, white culture when she has her interview at Mount

Holyoke.  When Amy said, "you speak English very well.  You sound just like an American"  (Cao 130).   Mai simply said thank you, even though she would have liked to tell her that she had been rude for insinuating it was better for her to appear American rather than Vietnamese. 

The language is a barrier that divides the Old World from the New World.  As in Monkey Bridge Mai was excepted for her ability to learn the English language so quickly her mother had an unfortunate disability to learn the language, most likely, because she had Mai there to translate for her.  Mai says, "[...] English revealed itself to me with the ease of thread unspooled" (Cao 37).   Another way her mother was able to adjust to the New World was to visit Little Saigon.  It is described as "the still-tender, broken-off part of the old, old world, and over here, so far away from the old country, [...]"  (Cao 40).  The Old World generation has a small piece of their past where they can feel as though they are still in their homeland.  The New World generation does not care so much for the past and they want to be a part of the future and assimilate to the New World.  This is evident in from Hunger of Memory, when the boy called "Pocho" could not bring himself to speak Spanish.  He claimed that, "they seemed to think that Spanish was the only language we could use, that Spanish alone permitted our close association"  (231).  He was ashamed that he did not fit in with the Old World generation and speak the language that bound his family together.  He creates a conflict between his family and with himself.  He is made fun of for his assimilation and referred to as "Pocho" which meant a Mexican-American who, in becoming an American, forgets his native society.  (230)  He describes his grandmother as, "a woman of Mexico." (234)  The Old World character of the grandmother is described further as having a long black dress that reaches her shoes, his one relative that spoke no word of English, and one that had no interest in "gringo" society.  The text goes on to say that his grandmother was protected by her daughters and himself when she needed a translator.  This is similar to the part in Monkey Bridge when Mai translates for her mother.  (21)

Mai’s mother is very much like the grandmother in that Mai describes their apartment as "a mere way station, rootlessly sparse since the day of [their] arrival.  She [her mother] had no claim to American space, no desire to stake her future in this land"  (Cao 91).   In Rodriguez’s story, the boy’s grandmother is a perfect example of one who has never felt the need to assimilate and he is the perfect example of the opposite, one who assimilates fully.  Mai said, "my mother’s voice churned inside my head, reminding me of the powerful grip her views still had on me"  (Cao 15).  Her mother’s words rung through her head, "they’d jump at the chance to send us all back.  Nomads, that’s what we’ve all become"  (15).  Even though they are in the New World they have fears of not being excepted in this country.  Mia says,

we were in a new, immovable world, fortified by its proximity to Washington, D. C.  From now on, our future lay in the capital of the Free World, our new home, where promises, real and hypothesized, would be made as extravagantly as they could be broken.  (44)

Mai’s mother believes that her daughter does not have any faith in her mother’s way of life because she is of the Old World.  Her mother says,

only from her American teachers can she[Mai] acquire knowledge, she believes, only from their fountain can she drink the holy water.  Not from her mother, who has been an exile many times over [...] she wrinkles up her nose and makes a face when I try to give her the real gems of life.  (54, 56)

Mai’s mother continues to point out the differences in her daughter and herself by saying, "Mai believes in genetics because her American teachers taught this science to her in school, and I believe in Karma because I have witnessed it all my life.  Genetics and karma, they’re as intertwined [...]"  (Cao 69-170).  Both Mai and her mother were really wanting the same thing, but they would explore their lives in different ways.  

Through examination of the Old World verses the New World, in the book Monkey Bridge, the mother and daughter have conflicting beliefs due to their views in the world they are most comfortable in.  The mother is more comfortable believing the way her Vietnamese culture has for many years, therefore not assimilating as the daughter has to the dominant culture of the New World.  The mother wants the daughter to understand her views that come from the Old World and the daughter tries to make her own decisions in the New World. Cao’s book gives a wonderful description of the life of an immigrant coming to a world where their beliefs may be questioned or unaccepted.  Seeing the story unravel through the eyes of a teenage girl had a intriguing, realistic nature to the whole story.

Works Cited

Candelaria, Nash.  "El Patron".  Imagining America.  Ed.  Wesley Brown and Amy Ling.  New York:  Persea, 1991.  215-221.

Cao, Lan.  Monkey Bridge.  New York:  Penguin, 1997.

Cinader, Martha.  Lan Cao Interview.  Nov. 1997.  1998 http://216.71.173.167/AuthorInterviews/cao.html.

Rodriguez, Richard.  From Hunger of Memory.  Visions of America.  Ed.  Wesley Brown and Amy Ling.  New York:  Persea, 1993.  229-235.