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Bridge from Saigon
As a young Vietnamese refugee, Hoangmai Pham suddenly lost her sense of safety and belonging when her family fled Saigon at the end of the war. But her later success in navigating life in America as a physician and health policy leader at the top of her profession paradoxically triggered a psychological unraveling during middle age.
Bridge from Saigon depicts Hoangmai’s struggle in confronting her hidden multiple personalities to heal, luring the reader into parallel slipstreams of discovery—one of family secrets and epic history before and during the Vietnam War, the other of traumas masked behind a child's vivid imagination. Hoangmai’s final triumph crystallizes the immense price that immigrants pay for a chance at a better life, and their resilience in achieving every sense of integration.
Stories of ghostly ancestors, a fraught return to Vietnam as an adult, and her kaleidoscopic inner characters unfurl in a voice that is at once dreamlike and brutally honest in a memoir that incisively depicts an immigrant story like no other.
This discussion guide was shared and sponsored in partnership with McFarland.
Book club questions for Bridge from Saigon by Hoangmai H. Pham
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
Why does Mai call her therapist “Blue?” How does Blue help guide Mai through her trauma throughout the book?
Throughout the book, how does Mai use achievement and the need to fulfill her mother’s (Me) expectations to avoid her more difficult feelings? Have you experienced this in your own life? How did it make you feel as a child to do this, and has it continued in your adult life? How?
Why does Mai feel different from others from a young age? How does she externalize this in her actions? How does she internalize this in her mind? Did you feel this way as a child?
In what ways do Mai’s inner characters (listed below) represent different versions of herself, or embody hope or danger?
- Baby
- Eight
- Four
- Michael
- Rich
- Seven
- Tiger
- Lioness
- Teen
What impact does Mai’s relationship with Me have on the other relationships in Mai’s life, including her relationship with her husband David and her children? How does it impact how Mai sees herself? How does your relationship with your mother or a mother figure in your life impact your current relationships, and could you relate to Mai in her experiences here? How?
Why was it so important for Bo and Me to come to Vietnam and experience being there with Mai? How does Bo and Me being in Vietnam alter Mai’s experience and perception of her family’s history in Vietnam?
What does it mean to live as a “bridge” in modern America?
During Mai and David’s time in Vietnam, she recounts the history of her Ba Ngoai (maternal grandmother), Ong Ngoai (maternal grandfather), Ong Noi (paternal grandfather). How did her maternal grandmother and grandfather and paternal grandfather shape her understanding of herself and her life purpose? How did they help shape her
How is Mai able to connect with her family and her family history while living in the United States, and how is Mai able to connect with her family and her family history while living in Vietnam? How do these different lived experiences and places open her eyes to how she sees herself and her family?
How do psychedelics and Judaism respectively help Mai heal? How do these outlets, forums, and communities impact Mai’s mental health and healing of her generational trauma? What outlets, forums, and communities do you use for self care?
What feelings come up for Mai after her father Bo passes away, and how does this help her have a better understanding of her path and journey as a refugee? Have you experienced the loss of a parent and parental figure in your life, and how did this help you relate to/understand Mai better?
In your own words, what makes Bridge from Saigon different from other books on the Vietnamese refugee experiences and/or the impact of the refugee experience on mental health? What event or lesson did you learn from the book that you would share with a friend?
How does Mai’s experience relate to what refugees and immigrants face today?
Bridge from Saigon Book Club Questions PDF
Click here for a printable PDF of the Bridge from Saigon discussion questions
Hoangmai Pham's Bridge from Saigon: A Viet-American Memoir of Family and Mind weaves her harrowing escape from war-torn Vietnam with the intimate unraveling of hidden traumas, revealing the profound psychological toll of immigration through a physician's unflinching gaze. In this razor-sharp narrative, Pham bridges generational secrets and personal fragmentation, offering a vital testament to immigrant resilience. —Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of The Leftover Woman
"You will be riveted, enchanted and enlarged by the magical complexity of this wondrous book. Hoangmai Pham entered the Labyrinth of her ancestry, mind and soul, found powerful guides, and emerged with a gift of pure gold in Bridge from Saigon." —Karen Branan, author of The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, a Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth
"Bridge from Saigon is a riveting immigrant tale like no other, infused with a kaleidoscope of history, passion, creativity, and phantasmagorical terror. Mai Pham is a keen observer of her own displacement, coming of age, and empowerment, all while wrestling with ancestors, ghosts, the American experience, and the psychotherapeutic process." —Susan Katz Miller, author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family