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Music as a Medium: Resistance and

Embodied Relationships in On Earth

We’re Briefly Gorgeous

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Hagan, Caroline. 2025. Music as a Medium: Resistance and Embodied Relationships in On

Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous . Masters Thesis, Harvard University Division of Continuing

Education.

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Caroline Hagan

A Thesis in the Field of English

for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies

Harvard University

May 2025

Music as a Medium: Resistance and Embodied Relationships in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Abstract

In On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong employs music as a narrative

device that mirrors trauma, memory, identity formation. The novel uses music as a

narrative device to reflect the fragmented process of working through trauma,

establishing intimate relationships with others, and forging personal identity. Music helps

explore trauma, memory, and identity specifically as an effect of The Vietnam War and

heteronormativity. Through ethnomusicology, literary studies within the historical

context of the Vietnam War, and an examination of the Vietnamese diasporic, this

research analyzes how music in the novel mirrors the characters’ lived experiences and

establishes their sense of self. Music challenges traditional national memory and serves

as an alternative medium to uplift marginalized voices. While music in On Earth We’re

Briefly Gorgeous depicts a personal account of trauma, the literature research highlights

pervasive gaps in recorded histories which supports a persistent need for artists to

continue their work creating various mediums that encapsulate a multifaceted narrative

account of events.

Frontispiece

“Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.”

Edward Bulwer Lytton

Dedication

To my father—

Who always showed me how to right the course when the best laid plans went astray.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my Thesis Director, Professor

Ju Yon Kim, who readily extended her knowledge, guidance, and support. Her

contributions and enthusiasm were invaluable, and without her, this work would not have

been possible.

I would like to thank my Research Advisor, Professor Collier Brown, who

changed the trajectory of my academic career from the start of this program. His curiosity

and robust knowledge in the field has been inspiring and had a lasting effect on my role

as a student and as an educator.

In addition, I would like to thank my mother, who has continuously provided

emotional support, blessing, and encouragement without which this paper would not

exist. I would like to thank my father who established my passion for reading and desire

to always strive for more. His devoted presence and guidance provided essential

development to my growth as a writer. I would like to thank my stepmother whose

unwavering support and diligent attention to detail continuously motivated me. I would

like to thank my siblings, extended family, and friends who frequently cheered me on

through this long process. Finally, I would like to thank my inspiration for this paper. To

see the world through his eyes has been a gift, and I am forever grateful for his love and

support.

vii

Table of Contents

Frontispiece ........................................................................................................................ iv

Dedication ............................................................................................................................v

Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. vi

Chapter I. Introduction .........................................................................................................1

Historical Context: The Vietnam War .....................................................................2

Vietnamese Literature and Vietnamese Diasporic Movement ................................3

Vietnamese Musical Traditions ...............................................................................7

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Literary Scholarship .........................................9

Chapter II. Legacy, Trauma, and the Sound of Survival ...................................................12

A Family’s Survival ...............................................................................................14

The Sound of Trauma: Lan ....................................................................................14

The Sound of Trauma: Rose ..................................................................................22

Chapter III. Agency, Resilience, and the Sound of Rebellion ...........................................31

Trevor and Little Dog’s Complex Identities ..........................................................32

The Sound of Resilience: Gospel Hymns, Dissonance, and Individuality ............34

Rap and Hip-Hop in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous ........................................40

Rap and Hip-Hop Background Review .................................................................41

The Sound of Rebellion .........................................................................................44

Chapter IV. Conclusion .....................................................................................................51

viii

References ..........................................................................................................................53

Chapter I.

Introduction

There are times, late at night, when your son would wake believing a

bullet is lodged inside him. He’d feel it floating on the right side of his

chest, just between the ribs. The bullet was always here, the boy thinks,

older even than himself—and his bones, tendons, and veins had merely

wrapped around the metal shard, sealing it inside him. It wasn’t me,

the boy thinks, who was inside my mother’s womb, but this bullet, this

seed I bloomed around. Even now, as the cold creeps in around him, he

feels it poking out from his chest, slightly tenting his sweater. He feels

for the protrusion but, as usual, finds nothing. It’s receded, he thinks. It

wants to stay inside me. It is nothing without me.

Because a bullet without a body is a song without ears.

—Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong, an American writer born in Vietnam, often explores the emotional

landscape within immigrant or refugee experiences. The novel, On Earth We’re Briefly

Gorgeous, paints a semi-autobiographical account of Vuong’s own experiences growing

up in Hartford, Connecticut after emigrating from Vietnam. Vuong’s familial history

exists set against the backdrop of The Vietnam War and the novel reveals the long-lasting

damage the war inflicted upon people. In his novel, the main character, Little Dog, writes

a letter to his mother where Little Dog revisits his family’s love, pain, triumph and loss as

well as his own. Vuong poetically depicts the recurrence of pain, loss, and love all

through the illustrations of fractured memories from Little Dog and his family. The twist

in Vuong’s novel occurs when Little Dog stands in the streets of Saigon watching a

cultural display of grief with dancing and music. As Little Dog closes his letter to his

mother, he acknowledges a lack of understanding which includes how he cannot, “tell

[her] why, on that street in Saigon…[he] kept hearing, not the song in the drag singer’s

throat, but the one inside [his] own. ‘Many men, many, many, many, many men. Wish

death ‘pon me’” (Vuong 230). As a child of a generation saturated in war and violence,

there is a different war with which Little Dog must contend. Little Dog’s bullet pierces

the divide between his heritage and the American culture he lives in now, his masculinity

and queerness and his love and grief. Vuong constructs an inextricable link between

violence and music within Little Dog’s introspective commentary, “a bullet without a

body is a song without ears” (Vuong 77). In the novel, songs recur throughout the novel

and generate embodied relationships with people and their pasts inside the effects of war,

migration, and heteronormativity.

Historical Context: The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War remains a contentious event in history both for its conduct and

its aftermath, “for Americans, the Vietnam War was long, costly, and divisive. It was

even longer and costlier for the Vietnamese, but that fact made the war only more

controversial for Americans” (Anderson 8). The complex conflict between Northen

Vietnam Communist efforts and Southern Vietnam resistance supported by American aid

led to widespread protests in the United States and other nations. The fear of Domino

Theory rationale substantiated the rationalization of the war to push against Communist

overreach, “as American casualties mounted… [as well as] the level of U.S. destruction

of the Vietnamese” the desire for justification of cause grew (Anderson 8). American

soldiers began questioning what their country’s actions revealed overall and the

ideological contrast of soldiers believing the war united the country versus those who

believed military intervention was unjust permeated the nations. At the end of the war,

the United States accepted large waves of Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Communist

regime under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975. Refugees

acclimated initially in temporary camps before being resettled in their final destinations.

Those who settled in the United States navigated the difficult realities of diasporic

movement and the generations to follow experienced lasting impacts from the war.

Ocean Vuong joins a cohort of authors whose novels catalog generations of

personal and familial experiences on the heels of The Vietnam War.

Vietnamese Literature and Vietnamese Diasporic Movement

The displacement of refugees after The Vietnam War led to consequences of a

silenced Vietnamese narrative. In America, the public perception and narrative

surrounding the war maintained American involvement as heroic whereas Vietnamese

stories were silenced or held an inferior position within the narrative and historical

memory. Viet Thanh Nguyen in Nothing Ever Dies specifies the relationship between

war and national memory and reveals the narrowness inherent in memory regarding The

Vietnam War. The bias in the case studies across the book reveals that national memory

forgoes neutrality and more often aims to achieve a politicized purpose. Nguyen details

movies, such as Apocalypse Now, that perpetuate the heroic narrative of American

soldiers and characterizes Vietnamese locals as people to be dominated. The biases

depicted in Apocalypse Now are one example of how bias permeates and forms national

memory. Misrepresentations emmeshed in national memory directly impact the historical

account of events which necessitates reexamination. Nguyen establishes the precarious

nature of war and argues that through film, artifacts, and monuments the war never truly

dies for the victor nor the victim.

Various Vietnamese authors make up a burgeoning cohort of writers who address

post-war silenced narratives, and their works reinterpret the historical memory from the

war. Thi Bui, in her graphic novel The Best We Could Do, reconstructs her family’s

journey from Vietnam to America during warfare tensions and violence. Bui pieces

together each family member’s sacrifice, trauma, and resilience in the process of

navigating survival and displacement. Similar to Vuong’s novel, Bui’s graphic novel

depicts proximity and relationship between first-generation and second-generation

Vietnamese immigrant families. Bui’s memoir considers the process of survival and the

inheritance of pain. The reflections provide a means in which Bui reinterprets her

parents’ past choices and confronts the limitations of understanding between those who

lived through the war and those born in its aftermath. Classified as refugees, immigrants,

or migrants based on a forced or necessary change of location, other Vietnamese authors

broaden the conversation regarding those experiences to analyze residual impacts for the

generations after.

Whereas Bui highlights personal accounts of the refugee journey, Aimee Phan in

We Should Never Meet utilizes a multi-narrative approach to challenge oversimplified

notions of salvation as she traces the unintended consequences of United States’

Operation Babylift. Characters in her novel intersect at varying points and through each

intersection Phan highlights the complexity involved with the loss of homeland.

Survivors combat not just the fear and tension within wartime Vietnam but also combat

the unfamiliar landscape of a new home. In the wake of their defamiliarization with

placement and home, Phan depicts how the characters must reckon with dislocation,

abandonment, and a cultural void inside of “rescue” efforts. Phan’s characters wrestle

with the void that accompanies severed connections to their homeland and frames her

character development in a way that redefines the refugees, not as passive victims, but of

identities ripe with resilience. Both Phan and Bui’s novels reclaim facets of the

Vietnamese experience which directly opposes the established narrative surrounding the

Vietnam War in America.

Qui Nguyen represents a more defiant and resilient composure for refugees in his

play, Vietgone. Nguyen’s Vietgone defies the familiar narrative of Vietnamese refugee

stories by subverting American hegemonic power in the script and focusing on satirical

representations for the characters interactions. Set against the backdrop of the 1970s, the

playwright interviews his father seeking to understand the origins of his past. Nguyen

also explores the desire from second-generation Vietnamese immigrants to know more

from their parents about their past. Determined to comprehend his father’s experience in

the war, the playwright pushes in interviews for answers to questions that skim the

surface of the controversial texture of the past. The father, a soldier trained by Americans

to fight against the Northern Vietnamese regime who loses his family in Vietnam and

falls in love at a refugee resettlement camp, refuses to engage with conversations about

the war and instead emphasizes discussing the Vietnamese people, “son, if you wanting

to know about Vietnam then I will tell you about Vietnam…let me tell you about its

people. But if you only wanting to know about war, then go rent a movie” (Nguyen 98).

Nguyen integrates music into a storyline that redefines passive acceptance and

demonstrates two characters empowered at the end of the Vietnam War. The presence of

music occurs in a different format from Ocean Vuong, yet the two writers converge by its

use.

Despite the collection of voices writing to deepen the understanding surrounding

the war, migration and displacement, Vietnamese refugees struggled with the identity

inside of their displacement. In “Creating sound in silences: the Second Wave podcast and

pluralizing Vietnamese diasporic histories” Tony Tran analyzes work by Thanh Tan, a

podcast host, and her own reflections on her identity. As a second-generation immigrant,

Tan recalls confusion as a child in America, “she did not know if “being Vietnamese was

a good or bad thing” (Tran 289). Tran’s analysis of Tan’s Second Wave podcast depicts

the significance of American popular culture maintaining a stronghold on the perception

of the Vietnam War. Tan utilizes a different medium separate from novels and targets

ideal audiences such as, “younger, English-speaking Vietnamese Americans” who were

“becoming aware of [their] identity and heritage,” but also had experiences with parents

avoiding questions about family histories and navigating “generational and language

differences” (Simpson qtd. in Tran 289). For the purpose of this paper, a significant

aspect of Tran’s analysis lies in the recognition that there remain gaps between

generations of Vietnamese diasporic. Tony Tran examines Apocalypse Now and discusses

how popular culture, such as the film, “fills the gap” of understanding between first-

generation refugee immigrants and their children (Tran 289). However, popular culture

remains entrenched in single sided narratives where Vietnamese populations were not

fairly represented. Tan responds to the silence from familial pasts in her podcast by

changing the focus:

Second Wave shifts to the dreamy, melancholy voice of Khánh Ly. Known

as the “Diva of Saigon” and described as “one of Vietnam’s greatest

singers,” Tan explains how after the fall of Saigon in 1975, Ly’s music

spread through Vietnamese refugee communities via VHS tapes that

helped to form a common cultural space by becoming the “anthem for

refugees in pain.” As the background soundtrack to the childhoods of

many second-generation Vietnamese Americans, Ly’s music helped to fill

the silences created by unspeakable feelings of loss and pain, but also

paradoxically preserved these gaps. (Tran 289)

Tran’s analysis of the Second Wave podcast combines two important areas for

consideration: the gap of knowledge between second-generation and first-generation

Vietnamese immigrants and the means by which the gap diminishes and reestablishes

itself with music.

Vietnamese Musical Traditions

Musical traditions within Vietnamese populations carry significant weight in

terms of their history and meaning. Barley Norton’s examination of music in “Singing the

Past: Vietnamese Ca Tru, Memory, and Mode” Norton highlights how songs, such as ca

tru, connect singers and listeners to a long-lost past of Vietnam. Ca tru “encapsulates

[elderly] nostalgia for Vietnam prior to war and revolution: it recalls personal memories

of listening to ca tru in their youth” (Norton 48). The songs function as powerfully

intimate based on traditional performance contexts and invite listeners into the personal

feelings animated throughout the music. The tradition of the song’s practice was met with

severe damage during the historical period of the Fall of Saigon. Often, ca tru was

associated with condemned or prohibited resistance in Vietnam which significantly

impacted the legacy of the songs. Norton acknowledges the change in musical tradition

and legacy and discusses how it shaped Vietnamese culture and memory, “the retreat of

musical knowledge into secret, private memory, as opposed to being openly expressed as

public memory, has had an extremely detrimental effect on ca tru musical culture”

(Norton 49). While one musical genre experienced detrimental impacts over the

historical period, recent studies explore music’s continued power and resonance within

Vietnamese survival stories. Alexander M. Cannon in his research, “Awakening the Soul

with the Left Hand: Narration and Healing in Vietnam’s Diasporic Traditional Music”

details how music functions as expression for the performer’s inner experience and that

the body is the conduit by which audiences come to understand a collective unifying

experience. Cannon expands on two different categories of Vietnamese musical traditions

and how they align the power of music situated within the construction of souls,

Vietnamese music repairs the connections between past, present, and

future… In Vietnamese, therefore, hồn serves as a source of community

and identity—not the identity itself but a spring from which one draws for

expressive purposes—while tâm hồn mediates an internal experience of

the musician for expression outward to listeners and connects artist and

audience through the heart. (Cannon 63, 66)

Cannon’s ethnomusicology study expands to include how artists respond to exile

and the expectation for work to follow linear historical narratives. The narrative instead,

“move[s] backward and forward in time, describing an episode in the present, then

recalling a previous experience of one of several pasts before reemerging again in the

present. The soul is not delivered with a clear beginning, middle, and end but in

flashbacks and moments when the mind wanders” (Cannon 67). The recognition of

music’s importance extends beyond the construction of a soul and into an essential facet

of navigating survival. Cannon’s study addresses historically linear narratives and the

propensity for narrow structures to remove how trauma and survival present for an

individual, “trauma is experienced repeatedly and requires continual action during

individuals and groups struggle to define a situation and to manage and control it”

(Eyerman qtd. in Cannon 43). Though the displacement and violence from war may be in

the past, the resurgence of those traumas are still prevalent in individuals’ experiences.

Cannon introduces Adelaida Reyes Schramm’s study on Vietnamese refugees which,

“identifies music as an imperative part of negotiating ongoing and shared trauma” and

remains an essential study that highlights music as a tool for Vietnamese refugees to

process their experiences (Schramm qtd. in Cannon 69).

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Literary Scholarship

The presence of music exists as more than just a background element in Ocean

Vuong’s narrative, epistolary novel. Little Dog’s letter includes depictions of his

grandmother Lan singing ca tru lullabies, his mother, Rose, and his lover, Trevor,

repeatedly engaging with gospel hymns, Little Dog and Trevor rapping and Little Dog

observing and participating in each of his loved one’s expression in music. Vuong

discusses the connection Little Dog maintains to a 50 Cent rap song, “Many Men” in an

interview with Spencer Quong. In Spencer Quong’s interview, “Survival as a Creative

Force: An Interview with Ocean Vuong” from The Paris Review, Vuong specifically

addresses the correlation and importance of music’s recurrence:

For better or worse, such songs, being cultural wind storms, were conduits

of our inner selves, and I was interested in how the characters wielded

their bodies against that sonic pressure. How it bridged them through

silences, how it spoke for them while also speaking beyond them, to the

collective.

Despite how explicit Vuong has been regarding the significance of music in his

novel, academic scholarship surrounding the book excludes the focus on music for

analytical lens. The current scholarship addresses the variety of ways Vuong’s work

subverts colonialism, hegemonic expectations and utilizes poetry to address cultural

trauma. In Jennifer Cho’s analysis, Cho defines the emotional shame that accompanies

Little Dog’s dual identity as a refugee and queer because both, “concede to the pervasive

shame produced by recognitions of one’s outsider status and failure to live up to white

heteronormative ideals of the US nation” (Cho 132). Christina Slopek in “Queer

Masculinities: Gender Roles, the Abject and Bottomhood in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth

We’re Briefly Gorgeous” studies the intersection of cultures, bodies and genders in the

novel which critically analyzes dominant concepts within society (Slopek 740). Birgit

Neumann’s research “‘Our mother tongue, then, is no mother at all – but an orphan’: The

Mother Tongue and Translation in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”

considers the loss of articulation and language for Little Dog in the diasporic context.

Neumann highlights the recurring necessity for translation to occur for Little Dog as he

navigates violent contexts, foreignness, and subjectivity. Neumann’s claims encompass

detailed examination of the tongue as a highly symbolic organ within her study of Little

Dog’s use or loss of his mother tongue, “broadly speaking, the kind of worldly contact

afforded by the tongue is both communicative (language) and sensual (taste and haptics).

The tongue allows us to make ourselves heard, to tell stories, express opinions and to

enter into dialogues” (Neumann 283). The novel has also been studied in regard to its

syntactical power. Stephanie D’Urso explores the syntactical rules and principles that

“govern the structure of sentences within a language- and is reinforced by state authority

through educational, legislative and political apparatuses” (D’Urso 1). D’Urso describes

Vuong’s writing style as a subversion of hegemonic and masculine language structures

for subject noun agreement within the novel (D'Urso 2). The academic scholarship thus

far entails analysis surrounding the intentionality of Vuong’s metaphorical references,

syntactical structure, and vivid descriptions and their collective importance in

highlighting voicelessness of minority trauma in America. An area worth considering and

not yet explored resides in Vuong’s use of music within the novel.

Each character in the novel connects with music in a way that is unique to the

character’s traumas. The process of listening to or singing songs has a linear trajectory

that follows start to finish. However, the songs in the novel occur in fragmented pieces,

cyclically over characters’ lives. In Chapter One, the song analysis reveals how music

minimizes the gap of understanding between Little Dog and his family and embodies

connections to their silenced past in the aftermath of war. In Chapter Two, the song

analysis establishes a response to oppressive experiences and embodies Little Dog’s

connection to his lover. Similar to how trauma is processed outside of linear time, the

music in the novel mirrors the characters’ lived experiences or how they establish their

sense of self.

Chapter II.

Legacy, Trauma, and the Sound of Survival

Little Dog’s letter rewrites occurrences where his mother and grandmother

navigate trauma and grief’s presence in their lives. Similar to Schramm’s and Cannon’s

research of trauma’s cyclical presence, Vuong’s organization of the novel reflects the

recurring pattern of processing trauma. Little Dog’s letter opens,

Let me begin again.

Dear Ma,

I am writing to reach you—even if each word I put down is one word

further from where you are. I am writing to go back to the time. (Vuong 3)

and recounts essential memories of his past: his grandmother’s experiences during the

Vietnam War; his mother’s domestic abuse and lack of stability; and his lover’s addiction

and death all amidst contentious political backdrops and time periods. Little Dog’s

immediate acknowledgment of starting the letter to his mother “again” encapsulates the

pervasively recurrent aspect of revisiting or remembering throughout the novel. To revisit

or to remember provides the person engaged with the process a power in constructing

permanence.

Though not acknowledged by Little Dog throughout the novel’s narrative, author

Ocean Vuong discusses the paradoxical sacrifice inherent in remembering. In Spencer

Quong’s interview, “Survival as a Creative Force: An Interview with Ocean Vuong”

from The Paris Review, Vuong states, “to remember is a very costly thing for anyone,

whether it’s a national memory or a personal one, because you literally risk the present.

You forsake the present in order to go back, and so the cost of remembering is your very

life.” Little Dog’s act of remembering and reflecting on his past provides him with an

agency in how the narrative permanently gets constructed. Little Dog undertakes the

repercussion of losing his present to reinterpret his past. Though Little Dog experienced

child abuse at the hands of his mother or bullying from his peers, the act of writing the

letter provides space to revisit the past and reconstruct the meaning. Throughout this

process Little Dog must reckon with another barrier to his reconciliation. Language

within the novel operates as a barrier and a bridge. Little Dog writes the letter to his

mother in English despite her limited understanding of English. The written word, albeit

a language his family does not speak fluently, provides Little Dog a means to understand

aspects of who he is through rewriting his past. However, it also reinforces a barrier

between him and his mother as he explains and redefines himself in English rather than

Vietnamese, her mother tongue. While Little Dog’s process of writing and his words

serve as their own cyclical recurrence, a space where direct translation is not needed

happens in instances with music. Inside the letter to his mother, where Little Dog

attempts to explain himself to his mother, Little Dog observes and engages in moments of

musical impact. When Little Dog rewrites these musical occurrences, he reflects on the

memories and trauma associated within his loved ones’ lives and reconstructs their

narrative with deeper understandings demonstrating his ability to hear them. Music

minimizes the gap of understanding between Little Dog and his family and embodies

connections to their silenced past in the aftermath of war.

A Family’s Survival

Little Dog’s letter displays the desire to connect and understand his mother and

his family as he makes sense of his own sense of self. The layers of violence Little Dog

experiences in his own young life create the foundation in which trauma and grief befall

his existence. Little Dog writes to his mother asking whether she remembers the times

she would slap him and proceeds to detail multiple situations of physical abuse. Little

Dog’s childhood consisted of physical pain as his mother, Rose, processed her own

anguish. Rose’s life, as described by Little Dog, bears the scars of her immigrant

experience. Lan’s life, as described by Little Dog, bears the scars of residual experiences

from the Vietnam War as well as her immigrant experience. Both Lan and Rose, mother

and daughter, hold the weight of varying traumas and grief in their lives and Little Dog

narrates the experience. Their bodies and voices reflect a testament to their sacrifices in

order to provide Little Dog with opportunities neither would have attained. Once in

America, the language barrier isolated both Lan and Rose from broader society, rendering

their presence nearly invisible. Little Dog’s narration highlights aspects of each woman

that other people might overlook. Within his narration, Little Dog shows the efficacy of

music and reveals different felt realities as the characters in the novel process trauma.

The Sound of Trauma: Lan

Vuong highlights Lan’s personal story of survival and sacrifice in a wartime city

where she was alone after being ostracized from her family in Vietnam. Lan shares with

Little Dog, “the story of a girl who ran away from her faceless youth…” and recounts

“personal stories too, like the time she told of how [Rose was] born, of the white

American serviceman deployed on a navy destroyer in Cam Ranh Bay…how as a young

woman living in a wartime city for the first time with no family, it was her body, her

purple dress, that kept her alive” (Vuong 23). The memories categorically become

elements of Little Dog’s inheritance; Lan’s survival narrative, an account on unspoken

endurance and resilience from those who experience war firsthand. The sum of Lan’s

accounts weaves a tight bond between herself and her grandson, and Little Dog becomes

linked to Lan’s trauma, memory, and survival- his family’s enduring legacy.

In the letter, Little Dog describes Vietnamese lullabies he had memorized from

his grandmother, Lan. Little Dog asks his mother, “do you remember it, Ma, how Lan

would sing it out of nowhere?” Little Dog, Rose and Lan attend as an event for one of

Little Dog’s friends. While the group celebrates Little Dog’s friend, Junior, Little Dog

observes Lan’s separation from the event. Lan sways and sings, ca tru, a lullaby from her

past:

To them it was just my crazy grandma mumbling away again. But you and

I could hear it. Eventually you put down your slice of pineapple cake—

untouched, the glasses clinking as the corpses, fleshed from Lan’s mouth,

piled up around us. (Vuong 50)

Lan’s legacy endures as actively engaging in singing a lullaby. Vuong’s depiction

of Lan singing ca tru highlights her character’s resilience and resistance amidst the Fall

of Saigon and the Vietnam War conflict. Her continued engagement in music as a

medium magnifies her true experiences from war which resonate with the felt experience

of the song.

Vuong depicts the inherent separation Little Dog, Rose and Lan experience using

fragmented syntactic structures. Vuong begins with a prepositional phrase “to them”

which establishes the disconnect between Little Dog’s family and the rest of the

attendees. Vuong isolates the counter position to the crowd identifying Little Dog and

Rose as the only people in the room that understood and heard Lan’s words, “but you and

I could hear it.” The sentence remains isolated and bordered with punctuation which

constructs a definitive boundary between Little Dog, Rose and the surrounding friends.

Vuong develops a purposeful island in which the family exists- not just in the room, but

even in the language in which Little Dog recounts the scene. Whereas the first two

sentences reflect short, emphatic responses to the scene, Vuong elongates the last

illustration of the contrast between celebration and memory. The short, sharp sentences

reflect the sudden intrusion of traumatic memories as they resurface without warning.

The longer, more descriptive phrases reflect the way memories from the lullaby

accumulate and layer over time. Lan’s pile of corpses from the song parallels the words

and memories piling up, never truly providing a reprieve from the past. With the contrast

from short, impactful sentences to the longer descriptive scene, Vuong conveys the

overwhelming and suffocating nature of trauma. The song’s lyrics also convey the sound

of trauma from The Vietnam War and its continued repetition in Lan’s, Little Dog’s and

Rose’s lives. As both piles, of words and corpses, stack upon each other for all the

characters they must reckon with the legacies of war amidst present scenarios.

Beyond the syntactic structures, Vuong constructs visual and auditory contrasts

which highlight the difficulty of Lan’s memory and pain from war. In the opening line

describing Lan, Vuong uses words like “just,” “crazy,” “mumbling,” and “again” to

reflect the dismissive attitude of bystanders who fail to grasp her trauma. They perceive

her mumbling as little more than background noise, and the connotative weight of

Vuong’s words denote something easy to overlook or ignore. The bystanders’ dismissal

stems from a lack of understanding and reduces Lan’s actions to eccentricity which

reinforces the expectation that she will continue these behaviors without external

acknowledgment of their deeper origins. However, Lan’s oscillation between the past and

present exists because of her memories from the Vietnam War and her felt experiences.

The lullaby mirrors how Lan makes sense of and survives her past, so her legacy resides

not just in the generations that follow her but also in the attachment to the music itself.

The same words that convey dismissal also reinforce the significance of Lan’s

experience. Lan’s mumbling contrasts with the celebratory buzz of the room which sets

Lan apart and positions her on the periphery of the event. While mumbling can suggest a

desire to remain unnoticed, it may also reflect Lan’s persistence to honor the pain and

lives lost in war. Her rhythmic repetition, seemingly insignificant to attendees at the

party, serves as devotion and recognition for Lan. By ending the phrase with “again”

Little Dog encapsulates how often Lan’s mumbling occurs, or how often she revisits her

trauma, not as a background noise but as a deliberate act of remembrance.

As Lan contemplates what deaths preceded her, she blurs a significant line

between creation and destruction. Vuong depicts Lan’s lullaby as a narrative form in

which Lan “fleshes” corpses from her mouth surrounding Little Dog and Rose. For Lan

to “flesh” the corpses, Lan creates death inside the celebratory event. The word “flesh”

embodies both a physical and symbolic representation which draws a connection between

the body and language. To “flesh” corpses means to give them life and animate them

through language thus making words corporeal. Lan not only figuratively creates death

inside the celebration but does so by calling the dead into the present linguistically. No

longer do Little Dog and Rose observe how the Vietnam War impacts Lan, they

experience immersion into Lan’s past and pain from the war. Vuong crafts Lan as the

matriarch with deciding force as to what gets created or destroyed in the family’s lineage.

In this scene, Lan produces corpses from her lullaby which destroy the atmosphere of the

celebratory event with Little Dog and Rose yet simultaneously create a familial bond

through trauma. Vuong utilizes the musical integration of War Songs to manifest Lan’s

pain in visceral and tangible forms beyond just the lyrics and speech.

Rose’s reaction to place down a piece of cake “untouched” encapsulates the

overall impact of the lullaby. Vuong creates a dynamic where Rose, Little Dog and Lan

contend with their familial memory and pain inside a celebratory event with other

attendees. Rose’s inability to consume the cake, a piece of the celebratory event, indicates

a visceral resistance to engagement. Rose’s refusal to eat, a mouth receiving something,

depicts rejection and a mirror of the struggle to accept new experiences amidst the weight

of intergenerational traumas from her own mother. It also exhibits how Rose receives the

legacy of her mother’s survival and indicates how Rose processes trauma for herself.

Rose’s “untouched” pineapple cake implies a lack of engagement with the celebration

and a refusal to take in the new experiences that surround her. Vuong’s contrast between

the uneaten cake and the fleshed corpses from Lan’s lullaby magnifies the different ways

the body processes what leaves the body, the spoken words, and what it does not

consume. The mouth serves as a vessel from which language fills a room with memory

and pain and simultaneously rejects what is offered. For the body and each character, the

mouth becomes the boundary by which expulsion and absorption are inextricably linked

as each character contends with their history and identity.

The way the song manifests holds its own significance in terms of inviting others

into a private space. Because Little Dog and Rose understand the language in the song it

enhances the recognition of Lan’s felt experience. Little Dog briefly translates a portion

of the song in the letter, “searching the faces of the dead, the singer asks in the song’s

refrain, and which of you, which of you are my sister?” (Vuong 49). Little Dog not only

hears Lan, but understands her, a significant difference inside of the public space of the

party. The lyrics within the song depict the violent loss and heartache associated with

war. Even amidst celebration, music bridges internal pain with external expression. Both

mother and son situate between the celebratory event in which they are physically present

and the emotional landscape of pain and trauma Lan paints with her song.

The act of translating the song establishes Little Dog’s mouth as a vessel. In a

different setting, Little Dog participates in singing Lan’s lullaby when asked by his

grandfather, Paul, what he has learned, “already steeped in summer and drawing a blank,

I offered a few songs I had memorized from Lan” (Vuong 49). Little Dog not only

observes the impact of trauma when Lan sings the lullabies, but he draws the connection

to how those traumas impact him as well through the process of singing. Music provides

an intimate space for vulnerability and emotional release. In studies, Aldrige discusses a

fundamental tenet of music and those who grieve where, “music comforts them, it

releases the body from a ‘frozen’ state, it eases the pain. At the same time, music seems

to invite and /or accommodate change, hope and constructive struggle” (Aldrige qtd. in

Ruud 166). Lan’s frozen state eases in response to the rhythm and soothing nature of the

song. There is also something to be noted for not just the presence of music but for Lan’s

resonance for the music to reside in ca tru songs. The ca tru music’s historical connection

to resilience and resistance enriches Lan’s character and disposition. Despite her past

experience with familial abandonment, prostitution, and discrimination, the lullaby

highlights Lan’s strength in the face of pervasively cyclical historical trauma and the

grief that accompanies it. For Little Dog to also sing the same song, the action illuminates

music’s efficacy in deteriorating barriers between experiences. Though Little Dog exists

on the other side of the generational gap, the adoption of Lan’s lullabies showcases how

Little Dog’s life remains impacted by the traumas of his family’s past.

Music provides a means in which Little Dog crosses the boundary and engages in

Lan’s experience. It also invites Little Dog from the public display of the performance

into the private intimacy of what the music does for Lan.

Little Dog’s performance of the ca tru song and its resonance with Paul, Little

Dog’s grandfather figure indicates how Vietnamese musical traditions establish impactful

connections. At the end of Little Dog’s recitation performance, his grandfather simply

applauds. Paul, an American soldier, understands the language of Little Dog’s song as a

result of his time in war. Initially, Paul’s reaction exudes simple appreciation for the

performance, but later when Little Dog stumbles upon Paul, he finds him weeping over

the folk songs. Little Dog includes his interaction with Paul later in the evening after his

recitation of the songs,

Although it’s only three in the morning, the lampshade makes the room

feel like the last moments of a sinister sunset. Under the bulb’s electric

hum, Paul and I spot each other through the doorway. He wipes his eyes

with the palm of one hand and waves me over with the other.

“You okay, Grandpa?...”

“…—well, I just keep thinking about that song you sang earlier, the uh...”

He squints at the floor.

“Ca tru,” I offer, “the folk songs—the ones Grandma used to sing.”

“That’s right.” He nods vigorously. “Ca tru. I was lying there in the damn

dark and I swear I kept hearing it. It’s been so long since I heard that

sound.” He glances at me, searching, then back at the floor. “I must be

going crazy.” (Vuong 49)

Paul’s reaction reflects an understanding that surpasses linguistics and deeply

connects inside the personal and historical memory of war. Little Dog’s performance

generates a space in which the narration of the Vietnamese diasporic confronts the

American portrayal and opinions of the war. Little Dog’s performance presents a

connection to Cannon’s studies on “Awakening the Soul” Little Dog as the performer,

becomes a vessel through which audiences experience the falsification of

history and pain …by uncovering and regenerating history, the composer

and the musician bring previously off-limits history into public discourse

for those who lived through trauma but could never express this history

publicly, share strategies of survival, and preserve these narratives for

future generations. (Cannon 72)

Little Dog’s expression of the lullaby carries significant weight, especially with

Paul as an audience member. Confronted with the musical display of Little Dog, Paul

revisits the war. His memories as an American soldier undoubtedly differ from Lan’s

experience, but the underlying understanding from the lullaby rings true. Paul’s somber

display demonstrates the poignancy of the lullaby. Though Paul may already recognize

the impact of the war’s violence, his character’s reaction disrupts the conventionally held

attitudes regarding the war. This interaction between Paul and Little Dog integrates a

space for concepts from Nothing Ever Dies as well as research in ethnomusicology

studies. While many of the national memories of war align in favor of America as a

rescuer nation, the lullaby and Paul’s reaction provides a space where the tension

between those realities meet. The long-held presumption of America’s justified

intervention deteriorates as Paul weeps over Little Dog’s performance and the vulnerable

awakening dismantles America’s national memory for one that acknowledges the impact

on Vietnamese populations. The scene also highlights how language and cyclical rhythms

in music affect listeners in various ways. Paul, a soldier who engaged with violent

expectations of war, carries an emotional experience from the war indefinitely, “I swear I

kept hearing it…I must be going crazy” (Vuong 49). He, too, feels the lullaby on repeat

and empathizes with the pain inside of the song lyrics. Paul’s reaction demonstrates the

two sides of violent experiences in war.

Paul, Rose and Little Dog, though on the outside of Lan’s memory, remain linked

to comprehending how Lan feels. All three have been shaped by the painful experiences

of the Vietnam War by direct experience or through Lan. Therefore, they resonate with

her trauma and displacement and comprehend the shared familial struggle for survival

and existence.

Music becomes a lens for processing pain and grief, while also existing as an art

to be celebrated. It serves as a bridge between narratives, connecting personal and

collective experiences.

The Sound of Trauma: Rose

Rose contends with the legacy of the Vietnam War in a very different way than

Lan. Rose undergoes racial prejudice in Vietnam due to her lighter skin, “they cut her

auburn-tinted hair while she walked home from the market…how when they ran out of

hair, they slapped buffalo shit on her face and shoulders to make her brown again, as if to

be born lighter was a wrong that could be reversed” (Vuong 61). Rose’s existence

marked the tangible invasion of Americans in Vietnam because her lighter skin was a

result of Lan’s work selling her body to U.S. army men. Though Lan maintains

righteousness in her actions for survival, Rose experiences a different variation of

prejudicial violence and alienation in her home country because of it. She also bears the

painful weight of not having a father because of the circumstances surrounding her

conception. Her displacement and isolation magnify when she emigrates to The United

States. In different areas of her life, Rose must reconcile with her inability to be

understood. In one such instance, Rose attempts to acclimate to the new environment of

America by cooking a traditional Vietnamese meal, bun bo hué.

Lan and I stood beside you at the butcher counter, holding hands, as you

searched the blocks of marbled flesh in the glass case. Not seeing the tails,

you waved to the man behind the counter. When he asked if he could help,

you paused for too long before saying, in Vietnamese, “Dudi bo. Anh cé

dudi bo khéng?”

His eyes flicked over each of our faces and asked again…You moved,

carefully twisting and gyrating so he could recognize each piece of this

performance: horns, tail, ox. But he only laughed, his hand over his mouth

at first, then louder, booming. … Lan dropped my hand and joined you—

mother and daughter twirling and mooing in circles, Lan giggling the

whole time.

The men roared, slapping the counter, their teeth showing huge and white.

You turned to me, your face wet, pleading. “Tell them. Go ahead and tell

them what we need.” I didn’t know that oxtail was called oxtail. I shook

my head, shame welling inside me. (Vuong 30-31)

Rose’s experience with prejudice, invisibility and belittling continues despite the

relocation to America. What Rose endures as a child in Vietnam underscores the physical

manifestation of the psychological violence imposed upon Rose, and symbolizes the

broader, racialized violence she faces daily as an immigrant.

The landscapes in which Rose exists frequently provide her little safety despite

her best efforts. Landscapes where the language barrier inside of public convenience

stores causes a lack of psychological safety, the landscape of her home where her

husband’s domestic abuse causes a lack of physical safety, and the landscapes where she

experienced a lack of safety as child.

A public space where Rose does not experience a lack of safety occurs in a

Baptist Church. Invited once again by his friend Junior, Little Dog and his mother Rose

attend a Baptist church service where music provided a different lens of understanding.

Little Dog recounts, “[Junior’s family] worshiped at the Baptist church on Prospect Ave.,

where no one asked them why they rolled their r’s or where they really came from”

(Vuong 58). Instead, Little Dog and Rose were both welcomed with smiles to “their

father’s” house (Vuong 58). In this memory, Little Dog observes Rose’s resonance with a

gospel song. Her felt experiences align with “His Eye is on the Sparrow” a song about

God’s attention on the smallest of creatures. The song mirrors the insignificance Rose

feels within the vastness of shifting landscapes and her fears surrounding success or

failure. Music’s efficacy in deteriorating barriers between experiences

Spirituals and hymns have long since been a method for African Americans to

resist their unjust treatment. African Americans in particular endured generations of

violence and dehumanization. Their response in light of such binding situations resided in

their ability to foster their communal strength and resilience through song. Slave songs

and throughout the generations, rap music, have provided African Americans with

meaningful engagement and response with their racialized trauma. Occasionally

containing messages for escapes or overall freedom, the songs served as both emotional

expression as well as overall methodologies for survival. Slave songs transitioned over

time from biblical overlap with character liberation and divine justice to gospel hymns as

a form of healing. Historically, while African Americans may not have been enslaved, the

attitudes of the nation still reflected a confining perception of ability and acceptance.

Racial segregation still permeated the nation despite the laws and progressive actions of

the legislature. During the Great Migration Era and the genesis of the Harlem

Renaissance, when African Americans began to find and strengthen their collective voice

in the nation, gospel hymns provided a foundational role in sustaining strength and

community spirit (Johnson). As African Americans developed their cultural identity and

solidarity, the church became their sanctuary. The lyrics and communal songs established

an integral space where African Americans reclaimed their dignity amidst persistent

discrimination.

In the church surrounded by strangers, hymns, and prayers, Rose cries out in the

sanctuary of the church, seeks answers from her estranged father, and simultaneously

mourns the life she left behind and the life in the new country. The hymn offers Rose a

rare intimate space inside a public venue for safety. The song serves as a momentary

refuge where Rose confronts her reality. Little Dog recalls Rose’s beliefs, “memory is a

choice. You said that once” (Vuong 75). In Rose’s act of remembering inside the hymn,

Rose makes a choice and effectively reclaims agency over her life.

At first I couldn’t hear through the sound of clapping and shouting. It was

all a kaleidoscope of color and movement as fat organ and trumpet notes

boomed through the pews from the brass band. I wrested my arm from

your grip. When I leaned in, I heard your words underneath the song —

you were speaking to your father. (Vuong 59)

Vuong depicts the overwhelming nature of memories and pain through the

illustrations of sound and imagery within the church. Little Dog cannot hear his mother,

Rose, amidst the noise as the congregation rises to sing in praise. When the music plays

in the church, Little Dog describes the act as a “boom” and a “kaleidoscope of color and

movement” which reflects a force that engulfs the characters. The physical intensity with

which music enters the scene parallels how painful memories can appear. The “boom”

signifies the sudden and immediate disruption memories have in thoughts and the audible

impact of the music conveys how music overpowers the space within the church in the

same way memories overpower scenarios with minimal ability to ignore. Memories and

pain also appear in a disoriented and fragmented fashion. Vuong highlights the presence

of memory and pain as emotional fractals through the “kaleidoscope of color and

movement.” Kaleidoscopes illustrate a mosaic of the nonlinear nature of memory and

portray a fractured view for the viewer. Visual disruptions and breaks in the image of a

whole reflect the same fracture that occurs when memory invades the present. The

fragmented structure mirrors the disordered and intrusive manners in which trauma

remains in the subconscious.

Little Dog describes the visible impact of Rose’s experience. Vuong depicts a

chaotic and overwhelming atmosphere in the church with, “blurred gyrations [and]

twirling coats and scarfs” as soon as the song begins. The band’s performance and the

congregation’s “clapping and shouting” signify communal joy and shared expression.

However, Little Dog, amidst the chaos, feels “a pinch on [his] wrist” and finds Rose

moved by the song, speaking in Vietnamese. Vuong’s syntactical structure of the phrase

“inside the song” amplifies the coexistent boundary music provides in spaces. As Little

Dog describes Rose’s ability to be present in one space, the church, he notes Rose’s

simultaneous overlap of being mentally and emotionally pulled inside the memories from

her past as she listens to music. The phrase “inside the song” exists separated yet again

from the remainder of the sentence by commas reflecting the floating transience of the

experience to be in one space while coexisting in another. To be “inside the song”

conveys a space dedicated to safety or intimate boundaries. Music operates as a space

where people find sanctuary. By its nature, music consistently implements rhythm,

repetition and overpowering auditory engagement which establishes a pattern for the

listener to know what to expect. Consistence, something Rose experienced little of

throughout her life, remains an essential facet of music which provides a backdrop in

which a listener experiences safety and sanctuary. Music provides an intimate space for

Rose to engage with her felt experiences which coalesce to a lack of safety in her life.

Her reach toward communicating with a father she has never known and pleading for

rescue, “where are you Ba?...Come get me! Get me out of here!” manifests momentarily

a reality that will never come to pass; Rose will never truly have the closure to

communicate with her father (Vuong 59). So, in this church space, where every other

attendee lifts their voices to a deity for closure and comfort, Rose calls back to her family

lineage instead.

In contrast to much of Rose’s experiences, Little Dog observes how the other

church attendees did not display judgment toward her actions, “...no one glared at you

with questions in their eyes” (Vuong 59). The lack of external judgments provides Rose

the “permission" to get lost inside the intimate space of her felt experiences. Vuong

illustrates the prevalence of external contexts on Rose. As a mother and a daughter, her

legacy lies inside of the burden of providing for her family. Rose’s survival attaches to

how well she fulfills the role of providing for those who survive her. The role Rose

undertakes as a laborer makes her central focus survival and provision. Rose works

endless hours as a nail technician to ensure stability for her family and receives no

reprieve despite endless exhaustion.

Little Dog’s choice to hear Rose inside of the song portrays a burgeoning agency.

Though unlike his recitation of Lan’s lullaby, Little Dog does not take part in Rose’s

musical immersion of the song. Little Dog’s lack of connection with Rose inside of the

musical experience highlights the contrast between Lan’s safety and Rose’s physical

abuse. Violence, even if not from war, contributes to the trauma response. Vuong

illustrates the tension Little Dog experiences in the moment with the word “wrested.”

Little dog removes himself from the power and control of Rose’s past. His “wrested”

effort reflects concentrated intention to reclaim agency of his own body and life. Yet,

even in the moment of distancing himself from Rose, Little Dog still makes the active

decision to “lean in” and hear his mother. The act of wrestling away, only to then move

toward his mother to hear her demonstrates a consideration of willingness to learn.

Vuong depicts a character that refrains from detachment and practices empathy in the

process of exploring the painful memories interwoven in his family. When Little Dog

leans to hear his mother, her voice comes from “underneath the song” which echoes how

the resurgence of memories happens as an undercurrent amidst the rhythm and

expectations in life.

Rose replays the hymn later when inside of their home and in doing so

accentuates the lingering impact of the gospel hymn.

Days later, I would hear “His Eye is on the Sparrow” coming from the

kitchen. You were at the table, practicing your manicurist techniques on

rubber mannequin hands. Dionne had given you a tape of gospel songs,

and you hummed along as you worked, as the disembodied hands, their

fingers lustered with candy colors, sprouted along the kitchen counters,

their palms open, like the ones back in that church. But unlike the darker

hands in the Ramirezes’ congregation, the ones in your kitchen were pink

and beige, the only shades they came in. (Vuong 60)

The resonance of the music’s impact occurs in the depiction that follows the

church attendance, “Days later, I would hear “His Eye is on the Sparrow” coming from

the kitchen.” Rose engages with the music in the kitchen, a space for eating and

communal gathering. The communal nature of the space contrasts with the personal,

intimate space Rose experiences within the song. The juxtaposition of Rose working

with “rubber hands” within the kitchen space conveys a sense of isolation. As Rose

moves her hands, full of life, in practice for her work, the “rubber hands” highlight

disconnection in comparison to Rose’s hands. The hands, “their palms open, like the ones

back in that church” also juxtapose the spirituality and living expression of the

congregation's hands. The church attendees’ hands lift in praise and move dynamically

whereas the mannequin hands remain still and lifeless.

Vuong’s description of the mannequin’s hands painted with “lustered with candy

colors, sprouted along the kitchen counters” showcases a vibrant presence of artificiality

juxtaposed against the natural world. The verb “sprouted” echoes organic growth.

However, the growth applies to something inanimate which heightens the tension

between real and fake. The inanimate nature of the mannequin and artificial use of color

emphasizes a replication of life rather than life itself. The replication of life through

artificial means mirrors how Rose produces life but does not live it. Her authenticity dims

in favor of external validation or obedience as a worker and mother. However, Rose’s

authentic expression occurs within music. What Rose chooses to engage with ends up

being a song which can be repeated over and over. Music serves as the throughline

between Rose’s development and growth as well as the connecting piece from the church

memory to the present moment. The act of repeating the song symbolizes Rose’s ability

to reclaim agency of her life’s rhythm. Within music, a cyclical escape exists; the

opportunity to transform repetition from oppressive feelings to something empowered. In

the generational progression of reckoning with the legacy of violence, music’s relevance

has shaped from a tool for coping with trauma to something with agency. Though Rose

still moves bound by her past issues with safety and landscapes, she reclaims a piece of

her power by reconfiguring the spaces around to reflect a place of sanctuary. The song

becomes a sanctuary, a place for Rose to exist outside of time and the persistent erosion

of the present.

The songs in this chapter provide Little Dog a means in which he can understand

the lives and pasts of his mother and grandmother. The songs are significant tools for

both Little Dog to connect with his family and for Lan and Rose to process the effects of

war and migration. Though Little Dog diligently notes his adoption of singing Lan’s

lullabies, the fact that Little Dog never sings a song with Rose highlights an interesting

contradiction. While the musical analysis looks at how songs serve as a medium to

understand the past, there may be significance to how far that understanding goes in

different contexts. Lan embodied safety and acceptance for Little Dog, whereas Rose

repeatedly colored the childhood and life of Little Dog with violence. Little Dog’s desire

to rewrite the legacy of his family’s past mirrors the efforts outlined above in Vietnamese

diasporic literature. Little Dog, as writer, works to bridge the gap and permanently record

how war, displacement and migration impact those involved.

Chapter III.

Agency, Resilience, and the Sound of Rebellion

Dear Ma—

Let me begin again. I am writing because it’s late.

Because it’s 9:52 p.m. on a Tuesday and you must be walking home after

the closing shift. I’m not with you cause I’m at war. Which is one way of

saying it’s already February and the president wants to deport my friends.

It’s hard to explain. For the first time in a long time, I’m trying to believe

in heaven, in a place we can be together after all this blows ever up.

(Vuong 173)

The introduction to the second part of the letter transitions from Little Dog’s

childhood memories to Little Dog’s adult life. Little Dog reframes his narrative position

in the letter when he states, “I’m not with you cause I’m at war.” The politics of the

country play directly into the conflicts Little Dog must contend with throughout the

remainder of the letter. Deportation, civil rights, and heteronormativity make up the

landscape Little Dog navigates and seeks to combat. Within the first half of the novel,

Little Dog rewrites his family’s past and bridges the gaps between his grandmother and

his mother’s displacement after The Vietnam War. In the second half of the novel, Little

Dog “begin[s] again” to reclaim agency over a different segment of his life where he

reckons with the grief of losing his lover and the developing “war” he faces. In the

second half of the letter, the presence of music amplifies Little Dog’s strength and

resilience. Music grounds the relationship he has with himself as he processes the

violence and trauma of his own life.

Trevor and Little Dog’s Complex Identities

Little Dog meets Trevor, his lover and friend, as a young teenager working on a

tobacco farm. Trevor juxtaposes Little Dog’s persona in various ways: his demeanor, his

physical appearance, and his volatility. Little Dog comes to understand essential aspects

of himself through the close interactions and relationship with Trevor. Throughout their

relationship, significant conflicts arise for both characters which force them to confront

their identity amidst external prejudices and lay the groundwork for their journey toward

self- acceptance. Trevor, a struggling addict and a son to an alcoholic father, often

retreats to drug use to escape from the confrontations of his sexuality. Trevor’s father

resists Trevor’s expression of emotions and overall sexuality. Even his father’s past

career reflects a desired embodiment of masculine stereotypes, “don’t forget I was the

best seal trainer at SeaWorld…my Navy Seals, them pups. I was the general of seals…”

(Vuong 142). Trevor’s father superimposes a language of war on a career that has

nothing to do with war or violence. The imposition suggests that his father prioritizes

domineering qualities and imparts those qualities on Trevor throughout his childhood.

Trevor’s father glorifies war and takes pride in violence against enemies. He tells Trevor

about his Uncle Jack after realizing that Little Dog was present in the house, “Hey—that

boy with you? That China boy with you, huh?” (Vuong 142). Rather than acknowledging

Little Dog’s presence, he dehumanizes him and details Jack’s service in the war, “he

whooped them in that jungle. He did good for us. He burned them up” (Vuong 143). An

inherent attribute of war establishes a group that is “othered” in order to dehumanize and

effectively conquer other nations. Trevor’s father values violent acts because they

epitomize dominance, masculinity, and dehumanization. The overarching attitude

Trevor’s father expresses toward Little Dog as “the China boy” reflects the inherent

categorization Trevor’s father holds toward “othered” groups in America. Ultimately,

Trevor’s father creates a pervasively rigid expectation for Trevor as a man.

Trevor claims control of dominance in spaces where he engages in vulnerable

moments with Little Dog. Trevor denies the bottom position in their sexual relationship,

“I dunno. I don’t want to feel like a girl…it's not for me–it's for you. Right?” (Vuong

120). Yet, while Trevor attempts to embody the aspects of masculinity within his

relationship with Little Dog, the facade regresses at various times. When Little Dog and

Trevor ride their bikes and Trevor stands, “his voice cracked as he mimicked the scene in

Titanic where the girl stands at the bow of the ship” (Vuong 123). Trevor actively and

voluntarily assumes the position of the female in the movie scene with no trouble or

concern as to his masculinity. Little Dog observes the archetypal tensions Trevor

navigates throughout their relationship, “Trevor the hunter. Trevor the carnivore, the

redneck, not a pansy, shotgunner, sharpshooter, not fruit or fairy” (Vuong 155). The

expectation for who Trevor should be and what he should exude as a male in America

haunts his existence. The ideal version of masculine identity reflects a persona steeped in

violence, dominance and an overall rejection of vulnerability. As Trevor maneuvers the

imposed version of his identity, the descriptors “fruit” and “fairy” highlight social

stigmas and broader cultural tension regarding queerness and masculinity in the novel.

Trevor and Little Dog both battle external prejudices. Little Dog observes in

Trevor’s life how the presence of social norms enhances volatility. Though the majority

of the analysis rests on what Trevor navigates, the same expectations hold true for how

Little Dog must operate as a man in the world. Trevor’s struggles echo similar

experiences Little Dog must navigate because of his relationship with Trevor. Little Dog

observes Trevor’s resilience in fortifying his sense of self when Trevor sings the gospel

hymn, “This Little Light of Mine.”

The Sound of Resilience: Gospel Hymns, Dissonance, and Individuality

Little Dog explores the notions of Trevor’s identity as characterized by inherently

masculine tropes yet remains often surprised by the tenderness of who Trevor can be. The

emotional suppression in his father’s acts of rage and abuse, displays overt and

subliminal violence. The internal and external trauma inflicted upon Trevor echoes the

cycle of inherited pain that mirrors a lasting effect from war. Physical violence often

leaves scars while emotional oppression demands conformity and stifles deviation from

prescribed norms of masculinity. In a landscape with such rigid boundaries, emotional

expression inevitably transforms into a battlefield where defeat equates to weakness. For

Trevor, “being who he was, raised in the fabric and muscle of American masculinity” his

own emotional suppression becomes the best way to survive amidst his father’s ideal

(Vuong 203). Trevor’s father, an arbiter of masculinity in Trevor’s life, embodies a rigid,

oppressive ideal for men. For every instance in which Trevor’s father abused Trevor,

spoke condescending toward him, or undermined the value of who Trevor interacts with,

his father transmits highly pressurized states of emotional suppression and aggression.

However, the song that fortifies Trevor’s sense of self, “This Little Light of Mine” was a

song Trevor learned from his father. Despite all of the suppressive and abusive acts,

Trevor’s father passes down a song that encapsulates resilience, tenderness and hope. The

memories Little Dog revisits of Trevor frequently include the song, “This Little Light of

Mine.”

When Trevor and Little Dog escape from Trevor’s father who is in a drunken

rage, they crash the father’s vehicle. Little Dog describes the aftermath of the wreckage

in the letter,

Although it covers both their faces, the blood belongs to the tall boy, the

one with eyes the dark grey of a river beneath somebody’s shadow…

And so now their heads sway side to side as their teeth glow between the

notes, and the caked blood crumbles from their jaws, flecking their pale

throats as the song leaves them in fistfuls of smoke.

“This little light of mine, I’m gonna Iet it shine. This little light of mine,

I’m gonna Iet it shine. .. . All in my house, I’m gonna Iet it shine.” (Vuong

76)

Vuong presents an instant physical connection between Little Dog and Trevor.

The blood from Trevor, or “the tall boy,” links Trevor and Little Dog. An integral part of

their connection stems from injury and violence. The injury, a tangible and immediate

result from fleeing an unstable household and the violence, a developed pain and trauma

from Trevor’s father and Little Dog’s mother and their abuse toward their children.

In the wake of their crash, Little Dog and Trevor move in synchronization while

singing the gospel hymn “This Little Light of Mine.” Their aligned movement reflects

rhythmic resonance for the music and with each other; Trevor and Little Dog connect in

the moment of the music with the physicality of their body movements and the verbal

articulation of the song. The “caked blood” implies the passage of time and wounds

drying in the aftermath of violence. As the passage of time occurs, the consequence of the

destruction still stains their “pale throats.” The blood which mars their throats symbolizes

the lasting effect of violence. Vuong’s depiction of their “teeth glow[ing] between the

notes” enriches the action of their unified singing. Though teeth generally function for

more destructive acts: chewing, gnawing, ripping, biting etc. Vuong dismantles those

general associations and establishes the radiance of the teeth with a steady light. Instead

of teeth’s destructive actions, the act of glowing and singing illustrates the importance

and significance of communication. The parallel of the symbolism, teeth or

communication glowing steadily, with the song’s lyrical meaning illuminates a growing

change for both Trevor and Little Dog. The mouth once again operates as the boundary

for expulsion and absorption where the silence, resistance, or attack begins deeply rooted

in the throat.

The song serves as a combined anthem for both Trevor and Little Dog. With

lyrics that emphasize the power of the individual, “This Little Light of Mine” creates

space for Trevor to resist the status quo, and Little Dog joins in with the anthem. Trevor

repeatedly sings this song which captures how the expectations of heteronormativity in

his life create internal conflict. Trevor’s internal conflict arises periodically throughout

Little Dog’s letter. His father’s views and expectation of masculinity color his

interactions with Little Dog which occurs intermittently throughout the novel. In one

such scene, Trevor angrily responds and redirects his reaction toward Little Dog:

Some kind of quiet sharpened between us.

“Hey, don’t do the fuckin’ silent thing, man. It’s a fag move. I mean—” A

frustrated sigh escaped him. He bit into the Snickers. “Want half?”

(Vuong 150)

Instantaneously, Little Dog illustrates the tension Trevor oscillates between his

entire life. Trevor quickly responds with course, vulgar anger toward Little Dog after

Little Dog experiences Trevor’s father’s attitude toward Vietnamese people post-Vietnam

War. Yet, because Trevor resists the very household and beliefs of his upbringing, he

makes a conscientious effort to switch his attitude. Rather than Trevor perpetuating the

stigmatized, derogatory labels, he stops his interaction to exhale and let go of the

embedded reaction. Their interaction also displays how communication elicits similar

sentiments of attacks or violence. Little Dog’s lack of speech “sharpens” the space

between Trevor and Little Dog where it takes concentrated effort for that space to soften.

Trevor must dismantle the usual defenses and promote a common ground for their

relationship. In offering the food for Little Dog to consume, Trevor performs an act of

service which demonstrates love toward Little Dog. The question, or communication, and

the action combine to disrupt the previously tense atmosphere between the two. The offer

of food shows how the power of the individual resides in what they say or do. Trevor

repeatedly sings a song that reinforces his individuality amidst gendered expectations and

constructs a reality in which he has agency. Trevor’s actions also construct scenarios

where he actively implements the persona he wishes to exude through his words.

However, even in Little Dog using his voice to revisit the memory of Trevor for

his mother, Little Dog depicts a different facet of the memory.

How do I tell you about Trevor without telling you, again, of those pines?

How it was an hour after the Chevy that we lay there, the cold seeping up

from the forest floor.

How we sang “This Little Light of Mine” until the blood on our faces

grabbed around our lips and stiffened us quiet. (Vuong 108)

Earlier, the blood flecked their throats; in this recounted memory, the blood

stiffens, and they both fall silent. The quiet either showcases the passage of time in their

interaction and the comfort in their shared silence when they stopped singing or redefines

an aspect of his recollection that previously did not notate how the aftermath of violence

silenced them both-not just stained them but silenced them.

The song’s conclusion, “leaves them in fistfuls of smoke” reads two ways: either

Trevor and Little Dog breathe the song into existence and expel it in fistfuls of smoke,

cold wintery air or the articulation of the song leaves Trevor and Little Dog in a less

corporeal state, lost in the resonance of the musical hymn and its encapsulation of their

felt experience.

The song brings empowerment and hope to their lives. The song’s lyrics depict

light radiating, and they sing the song with glowing teeth which produces a flame that

exists indefinitely because of what they say and do. The persistence of the light

represents Little Dog and Trevor’s reclaimed agency over their identities and love. Yet,

when the song ends, when neither Trevor nor Little Dog verbalize the light’s shine, they

are left in smoke—the degenerative aftermath of the light burning all the way to the end.

The smoke symbolizes the transient nature of their contentment. The development of

their agency and resilience continues but the singing, synchronized movement and

glowing, all indicate an ambiguous transformation or something still in-between. The two

characters reclaim their narratives by changing the state of their emotions and

consequential effects if even momentarily. Trevor and Little Dog alter the reality of their

battleground to fulfill a more desirable landscape. In Little Dog’s memory, they get to

rewrite how peace exists amidst traumas. Though they sat in wreckage and injury, the

song becomes a bridge where Little Dog revisits the memory and recalls beauty inside

pain.

When Little Dog is older, Trevor overdoses from laced fentanyl and dies at the

age of twenty-two. Little Dog describes mixed reactions to his memories after Trevor’s

death.

Horror story: hearing Trevor’s voice when I close my eyes one night four

years after he died.

He’s singing “This Little Light of Mine” again, the way he used to sing

it—abrupt, between lulls in our conversations, his arm hanging out the

window of the Chevy, tapping the beat on the faded red exterior. I lay

there in the dark, mouthing the words till he appears again—young and

warm and enough. (Vuong 166)

Little Dog remembers his lover and classifies it as a “horror story.” Horror stories

exist to disturb, frighten and scare, and Little Dog’s classification of this memory as such

indicates his feelings toward memory and trauma. Remembering Trevor so vividly

disturbs Little Dog. The horror also lies in the repetition of experiencing pain and loss all

over again. Little Dog experiences this memory years after Trevor’s death, long after

Little Dog grieves the initial impact of loss. Yet, the sudden impact of remembering

Trevor initiates the trauma of losing him all over again. Up to this point in the letter,

Little Dog observes how trauma recurs suddenly and outside of linear patterns while

rewriting his mother and grandmother’s lives, and now Trevor’s death catalyzes the same

effect for Little Dog. In the memory, Trevor “abruptly” sings the hymn and his

engagement with the song mirrors the same suddenness of pain and memories. The

horrific aspect of violence and trauma lies in its residual impact—the grief arises

cyclically. Little Dog also “fleshes” Trevor back into existence, similar to Lan’s actions

inside of the ca tru lullabies. Music triggers Little Dog’s memory and bridges the gap

between the living and the dead. Little Dog “mouth[s] the words till [Trevor] appears

again” which changes the reality of living in a world without Trevor. Not only does the

suddenness of memory demonstrate a disturbance to reality, but Little Dog’s choice to

construct and remain inside a memory from the past illustrates his decision to sacrifice

the present to go back. Little Dog opts for an artificial reality where Trevor exists again

over his current reality.

The repetition and recurrence of the gospel hymn helps establish Little Dog’s

sense of self. Through observation of Trevor’s struggles and how his life encompasses

rigid social expectations, Little Dog relates to the very same notions of those pressures.

Trevor’s volatility occurs as acts of resistance toward heteronormative norms. Trevor also

comes from a violent home which echoes Little Dog’s home life. They both understand

the familiarity of social, psychological, and domestic violence. Little Dog’s decision to

participate in singing the gospel hymn with Trevor provides peace amidst the precarious

nature of the world and the volatile landscaped they both navigate. The song later acts as

a trigger and an essential bridge for Little Dog to remember Trevor after his death.

Rap and Hip-Hop in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Little Dog and Trevor connect and participate in singing not just a gospel hymn

but a rap song as well. Little Dog repeatedly recalls the lyrics within “Many Men” 50

Cent’s rap song. The song magnifies an anthem of survival. Despite the singer facing

death and betrayal, the response reflects an opposition to danger and cultivates a

resounding resolve to move beyond the conflict. Though the song reflects 50 Cent’s

survival in response to betrayal and animosity within the industry, the lyrics and the

rhythm speak to a collective struggle. Communities or individuals of marginalized or

oppressed groups find the essence of their existence inside the song where the harsh

realities of life include systemic injustices and personal loss. The song alludes and

explicitly details a desire for comprehension and a display of honor for divine

intercession. Though not a hymnal, the rap song carries similar weight and relevance to a

higher power paired with the significance of the singer’s life. While the song connotes

masculine energy in the face of danger, vulnerability lies inside the lyrics as well. The

candidness with which the song mentions, “I’m trying to be what I’m destined to

be…Lord I don’t cry no more, don’t look to the sky no more. Have mercy on me”

exposes the weariness of a hardened survivor, the uncertainty of all associations with

spirituality, and the desperation for strength (Jackson [50 Cent]). It is this song that Little

Dog recognizes as the song that best articulates his lived experience and the persona he

wants to exemplify throughout his future.

Rap and Hip-Hop Background Review

The research conducted by Michael Brooks et al., titled 'Using Rap Music to

Understand African American Experiences,' highlights music as a significant factor in

processing negative experiences and promoting health and development. The study

specifically outlines multifaceted benefits including its function as an outlet of expression

for political or social injustices. It also addresses the necessity for a shift in counseling

practices for African American youth and encourages the exploration of hip-hop music to

better understand the socio-cultural context of African American clients (Brooks et al.

469). Brooks et al.’s research serves as an important reminder that hip-hop is a unique

tool for social commentary and cultural expression where individuals can learn more

about marginalized experiences. Marginalized individuals reclaim their cultural identities

and assert their presence in mainstream society with the use of hip-hop lyrics and

rhythms challenging dominant narratives and stereotypes while celebrating cultural

heritage. Most importantly, the study displays more recent benefits toward the accurate

portrayal of oppression and social injustice in hip-hop and how it amplifies African

American voices in said discourse.

Hip-hop serves as a form of education and consciousness-raising, providing a

platform for critical dialogue and social awareness. Through its lyrics, imagery, and

storytelling, hip-hop addresses pressing social issues such as police brutality, economic

inequality, and racial discrimination. Keri Koh Eason’s sociological study of how Asian

American and Pacific Islander Americans negotiate racial identities within hip-hop

establishes the precedent of its impact on other minorities in America (Eason 1255).

Eason’s interviews with participants that identified as Asian Americans revealed four

main topics: “External Responses to Love for Hip-Hop; Connection to Hip-Hop; Hip-hop

Styles; Knowledge About Hip-Hop” that illustrate how they navigate racial identities in

the United States and their hip-hop community (Eason 1268). Findings showed that

Asian American participants were aware of the conditional acceptance hip-hop creates

among the community and an overwhelmingly large barrier toward acceptance in the hip-

hop community stemming from race and gender (Eason 1268). Because the origins of the

art “traditionally [reflect] the experiences of the poor Black and Puerto Rican

communities” other marginalized groups experienced rigidity as fans and creators of the

art (Eason 1263). Participants discussed impactful connections they experienced while

listening to hip-hop because as “marginalized groups, specifically People of Color, [they]

identify with the prevalent themes of racism in hip-hop” (Eason 1272). Though Asian

Americans identify with the marginalized and oppressed nature of African Americans’

experiences, the attempted solidarity still expands the divides between racial identities in

the United States. Race in the United States has continuously been studied and

acknowledged within a limiting system (Eason 1257). The issue of racial identities has

developed to recognize the dissonance present for Asian Americans as they navigate an

American culture that adopts “a hierarchy that keeps whites in power and Blacks

powerless [and Asian Americans] caught in-between” (Eason 1260).

While Eason’s study delves into the process through which Asian Americans

construct aspects of their racial identities, Nitasha Tamar Sharma highlights the tension

and dissonance experienced by first-generation and second-generation Asian American

immigrants, leading to a phenomenon of 'deidentification' within racial constructs

(Sharma 47). Nitasha Tamar Sharma’s book, Hip Hop Desis: South Asian Americans,

Blackness, and a Global Race Consciousness contributes significantly to Asian American

studies and the intersectionality of hip-hop culture. Similar to Eason, Sharma’s book

explores how South Asian Americans engage with and contribute to hip-hop culture

amidst grappling with their own racial and ethnic identities. Sharma utilizes ethnographic

studies in search for how “Desis,” young South Asian Americans, express their own

marginalization in American society as hip-hop fans or performers (Sharma 136-137).

Sharma’s research reveals that Desis identify with common African American hip-hop

themes of struggle, resistance, and empowerment. However, as part of more recent years,

first- and second-generation Asian Americans have revealed an aversion to being

identified with African American and Latino minorities overall (Sharma 47). The

difficulty country left many Asian Americans struggling to determine where they fell and

wanted to fall on the racial hierarchy in America. While hip-hop provided the outlet as a

resistance to white institutions and colonized or imperialist structures, Asian Americans

grappled moving beyond “internal ethnic bonds” to align themselves with African

American or Latino minorities thus emphasizing the likelihood and presence of

“deidentification,” a move inward in race and ethnicity rather than connecting externally

(Sharma 47). All of these challenges of identification between one’s own culture and the

others that resonate serve to highlight the unique difficulties present within the dynamic.

The Sound of Rebellion

When Little Dog first writes of the rap song, he acknowledges he lied to Trevor

saying he had never heard of the rapper 50 Cent, “Maybe I wanted to give him the power

of this small knowledge over me. But I’d heard it before, many times, as it was played

that year through endless passing cars and opened apartment windows back in Hartford”

(Vuong 104). Little Dog’s lie distances both himself and Trevor from the reality that the

song permeates their livelihood. Music exists in the background of their community and

the persistent repetition of the song suggests the community resonates with it. The song

rings out as an anthem because it defies raising social tensions, “the entire album, Get

Rich or Die Tryin’, was burned bootleg…so that the whole northside echoed with a kind

of anthem of Curtis Jackson’s voice” (Vuong 104). Little Dog addresses the social

tensions to which the song responds. He rewrites some of the acts of prejudice and

violence, “Do you remember the morning, after a night of snow, when we found the

letters FAG4LIFE scrawled in red spray paint across our front door?” (Vuong 164). Little

Dog recalls significant moments of prejudicial violations. The battles he faces are

external and attack the very nature of his existence. Little Dog’s sexual orientation

becomes a target within society. In the moment, all Little Dog was able to do was lie to

protect his mother and his family’s dignity. Even Trevor attempts to underplay his sexual

orientation despite his relationship with Little Dog. In one scene, Trevor asks Little Dog,

“you think you’ll be really gay, like, forever? …I think me…I’ll be good in a few years”

(Vuong 170). Little Dog not only encounters resistance in society, but Trevor’s

comments highlight the prevailing societal pressures that contribute to Trevor’s insistence

on dismissing his sexual orientation.

In the first presentation of the song, Trevor embodies a rapper and invites Little

Dog to join in the song. Vuong constructs yet another situation where music generates a

relationship to people. The depiction of Trevor as he raps, “he paced the room, rapping

with purpose, gusto, frowning as spit sprayed the air, landed cool on my cheek” makes

Trevor an active performer (Vuong 104). Trevor draws connection to more than just the

lyrics; his entire persona, “purpose” “gusto” and his “frowning” highlight how Trevor

resonates with the act of performing the song. In comparison to the many other instances

where songs were sung or engaged with, Trevor’s intention and ferocity mirrors a

masculine empowerment. The rap song does not carry the same soothing features of

lullabies or gospel hymns but instead emphasize the powerful reclamation of agency.

While Trevor initially performs for Little Dog, Trevor quickly invites Little Dog into the

space of rapping the music. Little Dog, “followed his lips until [they] were singing the

hook together, [his] shoulders swaying to the rhythm” (Vuong 104). Little Dog’s physical

engagement where he “followed his lips” with “shoulders swaying” transitions Little Dog

from a passive observer of Trevor’s performance to an active participant. Trevor’s

standing invitation for Little Dog to perform the song bears relevance later in the novel.

In another memory, Little Dog describes Thanksgiving Day with Trevor. Little Dog

describes the day as, “remarkable” because “[they] didn’t have to live on one side or the

other” of happiness and sadness (Vuong 116). The day they experience does not reflect

the common familiarity of Thanksgiving Day themes, family, happiness, nourishment.

They spend time with one another, not their families; they eat snacks from a gas station,

not dinner; and they observe a family’s “shrill cries [of delight]” as they sit in silence on

a stoop outdoors (Vuong 118). While their actions oppose the norm of the holiday, Little

Dog still classifies the day as, “neither good nor bad, but something we passed through”

as he pedals alongside Trevor who begins singing the 50 Cent song (Vuong 118).

His voice sounded oddly young, as if it had come back from a time before

I met him. As if I could turn and find a boy with a denim jacket laundered

by his mom, detergent wafting up and through his hair still blond above

babyplump cheeks, training wheels rattling on the pavement.

I joined him.

“Many men, Many, many, many, Many men.”

We sang, nearly shouting the lyrics, the wind clipping at our voices.

(Vuong 118)

Vuong portrays music’s efficacy in establishing connections to people and the

past. In this scene, Little Dog witnesses how the song generates a connection not just to

Trevor but to Trevor as a young child. Little Dog recognizes and details a noticeable shift

from Trevor’s initial rapping of the song. Where he embodied a ferocious persona before,

Little Dog characterizes Trevor’s voice as “oddly young” Set against the backdrop of

having watched other children with their family on Thanksgiving Day, the act of singing

the song transports Little Dog and Trevor’s current state to a different place in time. The

song bridges the past and present “as if I could turn and find” just the act of performance

constructs a connection to a previous time where Trevor experiences a more idealized or

innocent past. Little Dog visualizes a younger Trevor, unencumbered by the complexities

of adult life. The focus on Trevor’s clothing “laundered by his mom” emphasizes the

idealized depiction of care, protection and safety. The illustration Little Dog creates

because of the song calls attention to who Trevor was in simpler times which enhances

the juxtaposition of who Trevor is now. The “training wheels rattling on the pavement”

depict a young child’s quest to learn as they work toward independence and autonomy.

The wheels display how fragile and imperfect growth feels. The process of developing

and maturity in independence and autonomy propels from the shaky ventures of training

and support. Little Dog observes this transitory depiction of change and then joins Trevor

in singing the song again. Trevor and Little Dog actively perform the lyrics, “nearly

shouting” the rap which marks the change from an oddly young voice to the older,

intense persona. Trevor initiating the song evokes the sentiment that ferocity and

intensity encompass how he responds to a lack of care, protection of security. The level

of intensity to their performance underscores the level of intensity they engage with the

song. The tensions and microaggressions in their lives expel as they embody a persona in

rap that confronts conflict with power. Little Dog understands the sentiment since they

both find themselves alone on a family holiday and ride through the streets shouting the

rap song. The day is neither good nor bad because Little Dog combats any sadness

surrounding conventional expectations for the day by spending time with Trevor,

engaging in their own celebration of the day, and shouting the lyrics in defiance for what

they will not possess or know. As they reclaim their day, shouting 50 Cent’s rap song in

the street, the wind acts as an external force that either carries their voices or obscures

their sound, “the wind clipping at our voices.” Nature operating as a barrier or conduit

displays how external forces impede the characters’ voices throughout the novel. As

Little Dog describes the memory for his mother, he addresses the significance of music in

those moments with Trevor,

They say a song can be a bridge, Ma. But I say it’s also the ground we

stand on. And maybe we sing to keep ourselves from falling. Maybe we

sing to keep ourselves.

“Wish death ‘pon me. Lord I don’t cry no more, don’t look to the sky no

more. Have mercy on me.” (Vuong 118)

In a rare occurrence, Little Dog specifies the importance of music inside his own

life. Little Dog acknowledges the fundamental tenets of music as a medium that connects

others very few times in his letter. Throughout the novel, Little Dog narrates situations

where songs operate as the bridge that help Little Dog to understand others. In this

section of the novel, his focus shifts to understanding his own sense of self as he rewrites

his past. Little Dog compares the different functions of musical expression. Music, like

all art forms, purposely functions to reach others. Yet here, Little Dog details how

musical expression also anchors people within precarious settings. Little Dog depicts

throughout his letter the varying degrees of precariousness in which he experiences the

world. From observing societal pressures, gendered expectations, addictions,

repercussions of war, prejudicial violations, and racist acts, Little Dog depicts an ever

changing and unstable landscape. The uncertainty of when or what will come under

attack or cause instability in Little Dog’s life substantiates his desire to be grounded.

Little Dog’s resolute statement about the song as the ground rather than the bridge

contrasts his qualifications right after. Little Dog states, “maybe” the act of singing keeps

a person from falling or to retain possession of who they are in general. Little Dog

verifies music’s importance but explores the possibilities for how the act of singing the

music offers different anchor points for different people. The fact that music serves as the

medium that grounds Little Dog reinforces the importance of songs throughout the letter.

Not long after Trevor’s death, Little Dog returns back home to be present for his

grandmother, Lan’s, passing. His grandmother’s diagnosis is terminal and Little Dog

witnesses how even when death is inevitable, care still matters, “we try to preserve life—

even when we know it has no chance of surviving the body…we feed it…even sing to it

[because] it is the most fundamental act of our species: to sustain the body until time

leaves it behind” (Vuong 198). The act of singing continues to reinforce connection to

people and signifies comfort under dire circumstances as well. Though time may leave

the body, and death transforms the physicality of its presence, the music in the novel

demonstrates the power songs hold in reconstructing, or “fleshing,” the dead back into

existence temporarily.

Lan’s death and Trevor’s death occur within months, and both losses significantly

alter Little Dog’s commentary in the letter. After Little Dog and Rose bury Lan, Little

Dog writes a string of thoughts which intertwine gentleness toward Rose, memories of

Trevor, and Lan’s last moments of life. Little Dog likens the experience of living to a calf

in a cage and describes “all freedom [as] relative” (Vuong 216). Little Dog looks at his

mother and sees the lineage of people who have impacted his life, Trevor’s eyes in the

dark, Lan’s eyes “in her last hours” and “the calf’s wide pupils as the latch [to their cage]

is opened” (Vuong 216). The songs in the novel serve as momentary freedom and expand

this cage of existence for each of the characters throughout their lives. Little Dog, in the

final pages of the letter, experiences a significant revelation when in Saigon, Vietnam for

his grandmother’s funeral. Little Dog describes a form of processing grief that occurs late

at night in the streets of Saigon:

The night blazed up before me. People were suddenly everywhere, a

kaleidoscope of colors, garments, limbs, the glint of jewelry and sequins.

As a response, a grassroots movement was formed as a communal salve.

Neighbors, having learned of a sudden death, would, in under an hour,

pool money and hire a troupe of drag performers for what was Called

“delaying sadness.”

In Saigon, the sound of music and children playing this late in the night is

a sign of death—or rather, a sign of a community attempting to heal.

(Vuong 226)

Little Dog details the importance of music and performance in response to sadness and

grief. The excentric display of the drag performers highlights their presence as othered in

the context of death “because grief-at its worst- is unreal” (Vuong 226). The blurred

depiction of the grieving process echoes similar descriptions from Lan’s and Rose’s

experiences which demonstrates that sadness can stem from more than just death;

however, no matter the cause of sadness, music functions as a bridge. Each character

responds to the effects of war, heteronormativity, and violence in different ways, but

music generates connection and healing each time. As Little Dog concludes the letter, he

reveals the song most resonant for his experiences. Though in Vietnam, watching a

performance for grief, Little Dog grapples with the unexpected and abrupt occurrence of

a song from his past:

I can’t tell you why, on that street in Saigon, as the corpse lay under the

sheet, I kept hearing, not the song in the drag singer’s throat, but the one

inside my own. “Many men, many, many, many, many men. Wish death

‘pon me.” The street throbbed and spun its shredded colors around me.

In the commotion, I noticed the body had shifted. The head fell to one

side, pulling the sheet with it and revealing the nape of a neck—already

pale. And there, just under the ear, no larger than a fingernail, a jade

earring dangled, then stopped. “Lord I don’t cry no more, don’t look to the

sky no more. Have mercy on me. Blood in my eye dawg and I can’t see.”

(Vuong 230)

Though he is in the same setting, this is the first instance where Little Dog does

not engage with the music in front of him. So, for all the times music has been a bridge

that connects Little Dog to others, in this scene the song’s presence shows how the music

grounds Little Dog. He replays and revisits the song he and Trevor shared, the song that

exuded a defiant persona and a song that established his own sense of self and autonomy.

Inside the othered performance, Little Dog resists adhering to their demonstration of grief

and instead manifests a song that speaks to his own.

Chapter IV.

Conclusion

Vuong illustrates how music serves to bridge the gap between first generation

immigrants and second-generation immigrants. The use of music to clarify lived

experiences after the war alter what permeates national memory. A medium other than

literature raises significant attention to bridge the gap between silenced, oppressed

voices. Music embodies truths of lived experiences and also acts as a transition from

public performances to private spaces. The focal point on music highlights the impact of

performance and differing responses audience members experience through observation

or participation. Current music studies acknowledge and reinforce how the art form

serves as an essential tool to process trauma and respond to oppression. Rather than

seeing music as a coping tool, the analysis explores how the presence of music also

anchors people. The inherent repetition in music’s structure and form mirrors how

traumas replay in a character’s life and also how characters fortify a sense of self. Further

questions to develop the fieldwork of music analysis include: Will songs always be

present in a novel as a reflection of internal conflicts? Are songs only appropriate to

analyze private character traumas or feelings or could songs in novels extend to speak for

collectives? Can tenets of the musical discussion in this paper apply to the presence

music in other Vietnamese literature like Vietgone?

The fact that these works of art, novels, poetry and music, give life to Vietnamese

experiences matters in the larger context of history. While it is important that music

reflects lived experiences, the issue that recorded national memories do not acknowledge

these narratives sufficiently speaks to a broader issue overall. To that end, it remains

essential that artists continue creating works that reflect multifaceted accounts within our

society to bolster a far more accurate snapshot of culture at the time.

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Music as a Medium: Resistance and Embodied Relationships in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous PDF Free Download

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