Elizabeth Bui: My Mother

Improved Essays
Elizabeth Bui is my mother. She was born in Vietnam on the date of February 5, 1968. Her mother’s name was Thom and her father’s name was Huyren. She has 5 siblings. Four are younger, Kim, Loan, Dominic, Peter, and Paul. Her older brother was Hiep. Bui has lived in many places including Vietnam, Korea, Tennessee, Texas, and New York. Some of the schools she attended were University of Texas, Arlingon, and the Korea University. Bui has long dark hair and black glasses. As a young child, Elizabeth Bui had the responsibilities of a mother. By the cause of a war, she lost her mother and father by the time she was ten. She ran away from the Vietnam war with her siblings and mother while her father stayed to watch the house. From the news, her father was a prisoner of war, after her homeland was taken over, Before her father was released, he died of a heart attack. Then, Bui’s mother died of cancer. Her older brother had to get a job, and worked all day for four other young and growing children.
Her parents gone and her older brother so busy left Bui with four young children. Bui had to shop, cook, clean, and do all the things a mother did. Except, have spare time. Bui had school just like everyone else and the responsibilities at home. Being the hard working person
…show more content…
Then, she went to college and graduated second best. After travelling around, being the young adventurer she was, she met my father. She started a family of two boys and one girl (me). I spent so much time with my mother. Since my family moves around so much, I don’t get much of a chance for an everlasting best friend. Therefore, my mom is the replacement. My favorite time, that I ever spent with my mother is probably on the couch. The time spent with my mom and I are very different, I love being best friends with her, but love being her little girl more. So when I fell asleep on her lap, with her quietly reading a book was my favorite time with my dear

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Mary Anne Bell is my favorite character because she redefines gender roles in the brute nature of the Vietnamese War. She portrays dynamic character development that is far more intense than all the other characters. The author, Tim O’Brien, uses Mary Anne Bell’s character to signify how war can manipulate people’s ideologies and expectations. Mary Anne Bell’s character is complex because it is difficult to analyze as to why she allows herself to fall susceptible to the war much quicker. The environment of the Vietnamese War becomes gender neutral allowing Mary Anne Bell to break out of her feminine qualities.…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Things They Carried, many characters leave the reader feeling uneasy and perplexed, but none to the extent of Mary Anne. While she is often portrayed as either a symbol for women’s power as well as for their supposed weakness, Mary Anne’s story is more about the power and intrigue of war on people, and how anyone can be taken in and changed by it. When she arrives in Vietnam, Rat describes her as, “This cute blond--- just a kid, just barely out of high school--- she shows up with a suitcase and one of those plastic cosmetic bags” (86). She arrives in Vietnam as this feminine and impressionable girl, and at first the men even say that she is treating Vietnam like a sort of vacation.…

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Thi Bui has written and collaborated with authors. Bui’s stories explains her childhood and her family’s journey through their lifestyle of the Vietnam War. The book that she wrote “The Best We Could Do” is about her experience of being a refugee .The book is mainly about her parents and how they were raised, but she adds her childhood and compares it to her parents.…

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It was very hard for Murray Fisher to fight in the war, but even harder for his daughter to comprehend what he went through during the war. Almost forty-two years ago today, Murray Fisher was stationed at Pearl Harbor (Fisher-Alaniz, Karen). He was a code keeper during the war. As the days passed, Murray wrote letters everyday, and sent them back home to his family (Fisher-Alaniz, Karen). On his eighty-first birthday, Murray handed his daughter, Karen, a collection of his letters that he had written (Fisher-Alaniz, Karen).…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ru By Kim Thuy Essay

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the book Ru, Kim Thúy tells her story as a woman named Nhuyên An Tịnh fleeing South Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in 1968. While coming to Canada she describes her journey without leaving out any gruesome details. The beginning of her life filled with fear, destruction, and hopelessness but towards the end of the book, she had gained strength. She learns that it’s important not to look back on the past and feel pity but to look towards the present and future with joy. Overall Nhuyên went through difficult time and really grew as a person throughout this book.…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women's Roles In Vietnam

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Ever since WWII women roles in war have significantly changed, during the second world war women took jobs in factories and abandoned their role as a housewife. Women became a very important part of the military during the Vietnam war. Estimates put around 11,000 women were stationed in Vietnam 90% of the women worked as nurses, helping to care and protect those who came injured from the battlefield. In “The things they carried” by Tim O'Brien, the author challenges women roles with Mary Anne. Mary Anne arrived in Vietnam as innocent as any civilian who has never experienced war can be.…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Murray Fisher Biography

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It was almost forty-two years ago today, that Murray Fisher was stationed at Pearl Harbor. He was a code keeper during war. As the days passed by while fighting, Murray wrote letters everyday, and sent them back home to his family. On his eighty-first birthday, Murray handed his daughter, Karen, a collection of his letters. Karen read all of his letters, and became facinated.…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    How well do you know your parents? How well do you understand them? For Thi, her relationship with her parents is somewhat distant as she mainly saw her mother as a constant working woman and her father as what used to be attentive, now as a constant smoker. The importance of understanding our own family responds the strength of the emotional bond that develops with communication and building memories to share with others. This theme of understanding family surrounds the novel “The Best We Could Do,” by Thi Bui, who illustrates the stories of both her parents living in Saigon during the Vietnam War, childhood, struggles, successes, and the birth of their children.…

    • 877 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    And barring the last years of high school, I traveled with my parents instead of going places alone, similar to…

    • 1076 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There was a Japanese girl named Ikumi who lost her father when she was very young. After he died,her mother was so devastated that she never remarried. The family did not have a lot of money, so Ikumi's mother was forced to bring up her daughter alone. The poor woman had to work day and night to make ends meet. The mother sacrificed everything to earn enough money to send Ikumi to school.…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sweet Heart of The Song Tra Bong In Tim O’Brien’s, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” Rat Kiley, a superfluous storyteller, recounts the story of Mary Anne Bell, a sweet country girl who is shipped into the Vietnam War by her boyfriend, Mark Fossie. Once there, Mary Anne embraces the people, the culture, and the war and transforms. As Mary Anne is a character in the story, one can come to the conclusion that that is all she is, a character.…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Essay In her novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka explores the effects of isolation on the identity of the family. In the book the Japanese were being taken away from their homes and being put in camps. This made them feel different as they were being given an identity that they did not want/like. Julie Otsuka utilizes the effects of isolation to argue that due to this the people feel like they have a different identity.…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It has been two years since I last saw you. Though only two years pass, I still remember everything. I will always remember that you were a troubled kid. Our personalities, style, thinking, dreams, taste, background are different from each other. Sometimes I wonder, how did we end up becoming best friends.…

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I Am Sorry Essay

    • 1229 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “I’m sorry.” Two simple words that can be articulated to mean a number of different things. Two words that, unfortunately, we have been exposed to our entire lives. Two words that are perceived as a good thing, yet in all reality symbolize the acknowledgment of unacceptable acts. When these two words are strung together to create a sentence that will invariably be answered with a quick “It’s okay”, it is easy to assess what has just happened.…

    • 1229 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mother Courage and Her Children: What Will the War Make You Do? Inside of all of us there are good and bad qualities. We may be aware of these, or for some these qualities only appear in times of desperation. We all have times of greed, and times of sacrifice. It is our actions that shape who we are, and what others think of us.…

    • 1213 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays