In the memoir, I Love Yous Are For White People by Lac Su (2009), Lac Su, a young Vietnamese boy, escapes his home country with his family due to Communists from North Vietnam invading South Vietnam. Lac and his family traveled a life-threatening journey to America where they suffered from extreme starvation, dealt with intolerable stenches of vomit and feces, and faced ghastly weather. America, the place that they previously all had notably high hopes for turned out to be a country full of drunks, racists, prostitutes, violent gang members, etc. Lac, Pa, and Ma all found it particularly challenging to adjust to American culture. It is abundantly clear that several sociological concepts are applied throughout this new period of Lac and his family’s life.

A race is typically defined as a distinct group of humans based on genetic and behavior-related factors. Throughout the memoir, I Love Yous Are For White People, racism, discrimination against one’s race, proves to be a consistent issue for this family. Pa faces racism in the moment in which he is jumped by a group of gang members. The violence began when Pa responded to the group of gang members  in Vietnamese, and the violence ended after Pa was slammed by their punches, placed in a headlock, and pushed around on the ground (Su, 2009). Additionally, Lac Su perfectly described the manner in which his family’s language barrier led to receiving racism. When Lac’s father takes his family to a restaurant shortly upon arriving in America, he is under the impression that dinner can be bought with food coupons. As the waitress attempts to explain that coupons are not allowed and Lac’s family remains confused, she displays a great deal of frustration. Instead of figuring out how she can translate her message to the family, the waitress appears to show disgust towards the situation. When she calls in for her manager, he soon leaves after shouting, “Oh, Christ, just forget it…Go, go, go” (Su, 2009, p.60). These repeated acts of discrimination against Lac and his family hold great similarity to situations described in Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach (11th Edition), by James Henslin. Henslin states,”As Du Bois passed a butcher shop in Georgia one day, he saw the fingers of a lynching victim…” (Henslin, 2011, p.10). The violence visually displayed in front of Du Bois resembles the violence demonstrated towards Pa. One of the main obstacles that Lac Su and his family had to overcome was the racism that was a consequence of being a newly immigrated Asian family in America. This racism towards Asian Americans still remains today; they have had targets on their back when it comes to discriminatory violence. 

Lac’s Vietnamese ethnicity led to his family holding more emphasis on certain values than the typical American would, creating the division between Lac’s family and the American people they encountered. Education, the process of being taught through instruction, is one of the strongest values held among the Su family. Pa and Ma go to great lengths to make Lac smart; they make him drink a substance that supposedly makes people intelligent, Pa beats him until he gets a question right, and Pa consistently urges Lac to receive good grades in school for his future. However, the establishment of ethnic groups has led to stereotyping. James Henslin describes one’s ability to unknowingly create a view of one simply based on a factor such as his/her ethnicity when he mentions, “Your assumptions…shape not only your first impressions but also how you act toward that person” (Henslin, 2011, p.112). While I Love Yous Are For White People does touch upon different ethnicities, much of the light brought to different groups of people seems to be stereotypical. For example, the Hispanic people of the story are almost entirely people apart from gangs. Additionally, there’s a phrase used towards Asians by Latino people. The phrase “chino” translates to “Chinese.” To assume all Asian people are “Chinese” is morally wrong. Ethnicity, while being something to appreciate, is prone to further the creation of stereotypes about groups of people.

Cultures are often characterized by foods, beliefs, styles of entertainment, etc. As Lac describes the first studio apartment his family owns, he describes his knowledge of the aroma of different foods from various cultures. This gives us a good clue that it is common for different cultures to be well identified with particular foods. Lac’s family’s Vietnamese culture is certainly highlighted throughout their life journey, despite their having to also assimilate with American culture. The Vietnamese nhau held at Pa’s home allowed readers to immerse in a world of specific Vietnamese  traditions; the geese’s blood being utilized as a dip might have been perfectly normal in this Vietnamese culture, but abnormal in another culture. Furthermore, the method in which Uncle five received the duck (by slaughtering it at the public park) would have shocked people of other cultures. Cultural shock was certainly something Lac and his family felt when first arriving to America; they walked into their first apartment only to see condoms on the floor, prostitutes down the hallways, gang members carrying around guns, etc., which were all considered to be acceptable. This same cultural shock is one that had been experienced by James Henslin, author of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach (11th Edition). During his visit to Morocco, Henslin found that everyone was fully covered from head to toe. The heat that convinced Moroccans to dress fully covered was also able to convince Henslin to wear less clothes due to his American culture.  Additionally, when standing in line to purchase a ticket, confusion was plastered on Henslin’s face due to everyone pushing and shoving one another. Instead of everyone standing in a line like he was accustomed to, Moroccans would aggressively try to get to the front. Cultural shock is quite common because of the many millions of cultures there are across the globe. 

Poverty seems to be a main focus throughout the Su family’s journey making their way around the new land of America. The lower social status of this family puts them at a higher risk to participate in criminal activity, consume great amounts of alcohol, and join a gang, all of which Lac did.  Particularly when Lac’s family’s chaos grew too unbearable, due to their income and living situation, Lac felt urged to drown out his sorrows.  Lac felt hopeless for positive change, and his demoralized attitude continuously brought him back to one thing: alcohol. In fact, he even had a “suicide jar” stashed in his own home which contained a mixture of different alcoholic drinks. Additionally, The Street Ratz gang and Lac, all of whom are of a lower social status,  had robbed the Beemer guy’s house because of his BMW, Rolex, 24 carat gold chains, etc. Poverty and social inequality have tremendous effects on people, and this situation describes how that undeniable social inequality convinced the group to steal as much as their hands could carry. Those who use the functionalist perspective believe it is beneficial to have lower social classes for the world to function properly; those of lower classes are able to work for companies owned by the upper class. In terms of other common behaviors among lower social classes, Lac’s parents feel more anxiety towards their children performing bad behaviors as they feel that avoiding bad behaviors is the sole way to resemble a higher class person. Someone closer to a middle class status such as Lac’s friend Art has parents who would not hit their child, as they are more likely to believe in children shaping into their own person without having to be reprimanded. The three social classes divide the world into distinct groups with different incomes and statuses; Lac and his family being a part of the lowest social class contributes to many of the actions they partake in.

With over one-hundred million births a year and families forming every minute, family appears to be the foundation of all society. This social institution offers specific roles to each family member and performs several functions. For one, a popular function of a family is to reproduce, something touched upon in detail in the memoir. Although Ma, Lac’s mother, lost one child, she still birthed Lac, Vinnie, Lac’s little brother, and Bo, Lac’s little sister. Tying into reproduction, a family’s function includes caring for those children. This includes providing the children with food to eat, water to drink, clothes and shoes to wear, a place to sleep, etc. Throughout the memoir, it is clear that Ma and Pa have both put their full efforts into making a home for their children. Regarding roles and caring for children, Ma was to stay at home and cook and clean. Her job was to nurture the children while Pa went out to create an income to live a sustainable life. Those very children that were being cared for had a job of going to school to eventually maintain an education, which is what Lac attempted to do after his arrival in America. One of the social and economic functions of a family include health care, and this was demonstrated by the Su family. When Pa was ill, his family addressed the problem and took him to get surgery, where they discovered that his pancreas had been infected. He was additionally cared for when he was jumped by the racist group of gang members. Lastly, another popular family function involves entertainment, and one form mentioned briefly was television; television comforted and entertained Vinnie and Bo. Family, a social institution, is one of the main focuses throughout I Love Yous Are For White People as the main point of the memoir is to emphasize Lac’s family attempting to shift from their old life into their new one; the readers are able to identify the functions and roles in Lac’s family throughout it. Every society contains social institutions, family being one of the most common ones yet. 

The memoir, I Love Yous Are For White People by Lac Su (2009), offers insight on Lac Su and his family’s challenging task to survive in a crowded sea of Americans. Facing an entirely new setting requires them to adjust their language, behaviors, work-ethic, attitudes, etc. The Su family pushes through as many barriers as humanly possible by sacrificing much of their old lives, by diving through dumpsters, and by moving several times to find the right location to settle in. The life that Lac and his family adopted was a life that included racist encounters, stereotyping using ethnicities, a culture to be embraced, inequality among social classes, and maintenance of one main social institution: family. With the assistance of sociology to expand on several concepts that appear throughout the memoir, it becomes easier to comprehend the society that Lac and his family are living in and what they implement into it.

                                                              References 

Trujillo, D. (2016, April 15). Vietnam places a high value on education. People’s World. 

peoplesworld.org/article/vietnam-places-a-high-value-on-education/#:~:text=The%20Vietnamese%20people%20respect%20education%20and%20place%20a,elite%20were%20allowed%20to%20participate%20in%20educational%20activities.

Functions of Family as a Social Institution. (2013, December 6). Study Lecture Notes.

studylecturenotes.com/functions-of-family-as-a-social-institution/#:~:text=Family%20as%20a%20social%20institution%20try%20to%20keep,one%20generation%20to%20the%20other%20as%20a%20heritage.

Su, L. (2009). I love yous are for white people : a memoir. Harper Perennial.

Henslin, J. M. (2011). Sociology : a down to earth approach, census update. Prentice Hall.