I Love Yous Are for White People: A Memoir
By Lac Su
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
As a young child, Lac Su made a harrowing escape from the Communists in Vietnam. With a price on his father's head, Lac, with his family, was forced to immigrate in 1979 to seedy West Los Angeles where squalid living conditions and a cultural fabric that refused to thread them in effectively squashed their American Dream. Lac's search for love and acceptance amid poverty—not to mention the psychological turmoil created by a harsh and unrelenting father—turned his young life into a comedy of errors and led him to a dangerous gang experience that threatened to tear his life apart.
Heart-wrenching, irreverent, and ultimately uplifting, I Love Yous Are for White People is memoir at its most affecting, depicting the struggles that countless individuals have faced in their quest to belong and that even more have endured in pursuit of a father's fleeting affection.
Lac Su
Lac Su received a master's degree and Ph.D., A.B.D., in industrial-organizational psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology. He is vice president of marketing for TalentSmart, a global think tank and management consulting firm, and he lives in San Diego with his wife and three kids.
Related to I Love Yous Are for White People
Related ebooks
To Love The Coming End Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'm Down: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Poster Child: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Passing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sketchtasy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crazy Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5God Grew Tired of Us: The Heartbreaking, Inspiring Story of a Lost Boy of Sudan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Are Bridges: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeven Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNext Time There's a Pandemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Garden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of Phoebe Robinson's Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHermosa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScared Silent Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quint Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gypsy Boy: My Life in the Secret World of the Romany Gypsies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Let Him Know Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Exiles of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Fragile Life: A Mother's Story of a Bipolar Son Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another Black Girl Miracle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dear Sister: Letters From Survivors of Sexual Violence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnbecoming: A Memoir of Disobedience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Across a Hundred Mountains: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grace: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Color Blind: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Negative Space Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Other People Make Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Personal Memoirs For You
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Choice: Embrace the Possible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mommie Dearest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stash: My Life in Hiding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for I Love Yous Are for White People
42 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I dont know why I torture myself reading books of abusive parents. It's just so sad and makes me so damned mad.In this book the author manages to rise above his upbringing and come through all the hell he had been through. Message here...never lose hope.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gut-wrenchingly good.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It is amazing that there are refugees who manage to rise above difficulty and tragedy in a country that can be cruel and unforgiving. Lac and his family flee Communist Vietnam and end up in the U.S., in a horrible Los Angeles neighborhood rife with prostitutes, drug dealers and gang violence. While Lac's parents deal with the challenges of language, culture shock and trying to find work while raising their children, Lac and his siblings cope with teasing at school and learning the English language. As Lac grows older, he yearns to escape his family, especially his often brutal father, and finds acceptance and freedom with street gangs. Lac is never completely hard-core; the weight of his father's disapproval keeps him from going over the edge. Still, Lac goes through some hard times before finding his way out. Teens from the 'hood will burn through this book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I think I am getting a bit jaded when it comes to memoirs. This did not grab at my heart strings like it should have and I am sure it is purely because of the writing style, it was quite dry and point of fact. I hate to think that I have become desensitived to all but the most horrific of stories but I believe that it is because the author seemed to be almost a bit removed from the story and so I felt the same.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“I Love Yous Are For White People” gives a vivid picture of the Asian-American culture in San Gabriel. A heart breaking family tale, but Lac Su rose above the neighborhood he was raised in to make a success of himself.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This is another example of a memoir that cannot survive on plot alone. Lac Su is not a talented enough writer or thinker to pull off anything distinguishable.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lac Su's experiences as a Vietnamese refugee "off the boat" in greater L.A. are rich and riveting. He captures with compelling detail the cultural misunderstandings, racism, and alienation of a new American. These episodes provide some great read-aloud moments (visiting Big Boy with food stamps; the 'goose' dinner, etc) Due mostly to the colorful neighborhood in which he lives, Lac flirts with gang activities: graffiti, drinking (no drugs), violence, and crime (one break-in). In the end, he transcends his environment by switching schools. The other main theme of the book is his dysfunctional relationship with this father; a man who is physically and emotionally abusive. (Lac became a Psychologist, in part, in an effort to understand his father.) Language and violence limit the book to mature teens.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lac Su escaped Vietnam in the early 1970s, and came to America with his family. This book is about his childhood and teenage years in Southern California. It's honest through several difficult topics including drug and alcohol use, physical abuse, and gang violence.