In fiction, it's as if you enter a dream world that you created, but your characters have their own free will. They don't do what you want them to do - they get into trouble, do drugs, fight over petty things, and do outrageous things that you wouldn't want your children to do. In other words, you can only provide the background, the seeds - in my case the background of the Vietnamese refugee.
Andrew LamI am glad to see the wheels are moving at last toward comprehensive immigration reform after last year's election. I am glad that immigrants are speaking up.
Andrew LamAfter twenty years and thirty stories, thirteen pieces were finally selected and the collection was born. So far, the blurbs from [authors] Maxine Hong Kingston, Gish Jen, Robert Olen Butler, Oscar Hijuelos and others, have been most encouraging.
Andrew LamIsn't the first story told in the West about the Fall? Adam and Eve were immigrants too from somewhere, a lost Eden, a paradise lost. We all now are so mobile, so nomadic .
Andrew LamToday, more people are crossing various borders in order to survive, thrive, change their lives. Even if you don't cross the border, with demographic shifts, the border sometimes crosses you.
Andrew LamIn fiction, it's as if you enter a dream world that you created, but your characters have their own free will. They don't do what you want them to do - they get into trouble, do drugs, fight over petty things, and do outrageous things that you wouldn't want your children to do. In other words, you can only provide the background, the seeds - in my case the background of the Vietnamese refugee.
Andrew Lam