Bui Doi: Film Response

Bui Doi Film Response English 26

Bui Doi: Life Like Dust is a film that allows us to step into the life of Ricky Phan, a Vietnamese immigrant who arrives to the United States and becomes a part of the gang known as Bui Doi. Ricky explains his struggles he had in Vietnam along with the struggles he experienced while growing up in the United States. While in Vietnam he had to work at a young age and he had a strong envy towards other children who had the opportunities to do the things he didn’t get to do. He wanted to be able to play, to be a child, but instead he was forced to sell bread in the streets. It frustrated him so badly, that one day he even gave away all his bread to a monkey just to get rid
Once he arrived to America he saw hope for new things. He described it as “being born again into a whole new world”. The big houses astonished him and made him feel like he was in place that was so pretty and dreamy. Unfortunately, things changed once he enrolled into school. The other children picked on him and made racial insults which resulted in him wanting to only associate himself with other Vietnamese. These were people who he could relate to and speak his language with, people who eventually became his second family, and these group of people were part of the Bui Doi gang. In the book Drown, the character Junior shares very similar struggles that Ricky shows in the film. America was the dream world for Junior and for Ricky. Yet once they arrived to America they both couldn’t seem to find a future for themselves outside of what they had decided was predestined to happen. The life Junior chose in America which was to sell drugs and not go to college, and the gang life Ricky chose instead of taking his mother’s advice, has made them both feel incapable of doing anything good for themselves. Ricky enjoyed his gang involvement and was eager to live it up. Good times with his new family