The ocean represents Bui and her family’s contradictory relationship to Việt Nam and their past. First, it symbolizes the sense of isolation and danger that defines their lives for so long: Bui’s characters find themselves alone, surrounded on all sides by an interminable body of water, forced to fend for themselves and risk their lives for the sake of their freedom. This parallels the danger and crushing loneliness they feel in Việt Nam, under a series of repressive governments, the danger of their boat journey itself, and the fear and isolation they after moving to the United States, as they assimilate to a new, unknown culture.
But the ocean also symbolizes the freedom that Bui’s family seeks by escaping Việt Nam. Not only do they literally take to the ocean in their escape attempt to Malaysia, but this is the same ocean that separates Việt Nam from the United States, their old home from their new one. When she looks out upon the Pacific Ocean, Bui both remembers her family’s voyage and realizes how estranged she has become from the place of her birth. When Bố looks up at the stars on pages 248-249, the family’s isolation now means they have steered clear of persecution. And on the last page, Bui explicitly connects the ocean to freedom, autonomy, and self-invention: she depicts her son swimming in the ocean and suggests that “maybe he can be free” of her and her family’s dark past. As her son takes to the sea, too, he also gets a fresh slate.
The Ocean Quotes in The Best We Could Do
My parents escaped Việt Nam on a boat so their children could grow up in freedom.
You’d think I could be more grateful.
I am now older than my parents were when they made that incredible journey.
But I fear that around them, I will always be a child…
and they a symbol to me—two sides of a chasm, full of meaning and resentment.
Soon after that trip back to Việt Nam (our first since we escaped in 1978)…
…I began to record our family history…
thinking that if I bridged the gap between the past and the present…
…I could fill the void between my parents and me.
And that if I could see Việt Nam as a real place, and not a symbol of something lost…
…I would see my parents as real people…
and learn to love them better.
Though my world was small,
I would sometimes dream of being free in it.
This was my favorite dream.
We were now BOAT PEOPLE—
—five among hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding into neighboring countries, seeking asylum.
That first week of parenting was the hardest week of my life, and the only time I ever felt called upon to be HEROIC.
What has worried me since having my own child
was whether I would pass along some gene for sorrow
or unintentionally inflict damage I could never undo.
But when I look at my son, now ten years old,
I don’t see war and loss
or even Travis and me.
I see a new life, bound with mine quite by coincidence,
and I think maybe he can be free.
The Ocean Symbol Timeline in The Best We Could Do
