The Gangster We Are All Looking For

The Girl’s mother is referred to by the Vietnamese term “Ma” in earlier chapters and simply “her mother” in later chapters. She is a South Vietnamese Catholic teenager who falls in love with Ba despite her parents’ disapproval but has to raise her daughter and son on her own after her husband goes off to fight in the war in Vietnam. She is left behind on a beach in Vietnam by accident, leaving her alone as Ba and the Girl flee to the U.S. Eventually, she rejoins them in California. She considers herself a modern woman and cuts her hair short. Although she works as a seamstress and later as a worker in a Vietnamese restaurant, she would rather do something more independent like running her own restaurant. Due to the trauma of losing her son, she offers strange and overly cautious advice to the Girl. She fights with her husband due to his drunken behavior and blames him for many of the ills in her life, but she still is inseparable from him, nonetheless. She feels guilt over the death of her son, trauma from the war, and for leaving her parents behind in Vietnam.

The Girl’s father is referred to by the Vietnamese term “Ba” in earlier chapters and simply “her father” in later chapters. He is a Buddhist “gangster” (79) from North Vietnam. Not much is known about his past, but he claims to have semi-aristocratic lineage and that his mother was a French mistress to his Vietnamese father, hence his “tall nose” (88) that is not common among Vietnamese individuals. He is estranged from his family and runs away from them. He meets Ma and they marry, but he has to go off to war to fight for the Americans against other Vietnamese soldiers. After the war is over and the Americans leave, Ba is entered into a re-education camp for Vietnamese soldiers who fought for the Americans. His son dies while he is in the camp. He flees with his daughter to the U.S., where they live for some years until Ma is able to join them. He suffers from both the trauma over leaving his wife by accident in Vietnam and his violent experiences as a solider in the war. This trauma manifests in the form of PTSD and coping mechanisms like habitual drunkenness and erratic behavior. His behavior and unwillingness to change create turmoil with his relationships, notably with his wife and daughter. 

The unnamed older brother of the Girl drowns in Vietnam prior to the family moving to the U.S. The Girl is deeply traumatized by her brother’s death and asks her parents questions about the nature of his drowning, but they don’t answer her. As a child, the Girl does not understand that her brother has died and thinks she has left him behind in Vietnam. His presence lingers with the Girl like a ghost for years after his death, even when she is an adult. His death forms the basis for the family’s relationship to water and serves as a reminder of all that they have left behind—or lost—in Vietnam. 

Mr. Russell is a retired Navy veteran who decides to sponsor Vietnamese refugees to live in the U.S. after having a prophetic dream. He is sympathetic to their plight but tends to stereotype non-Americans as one mass of helpless faces that need saving. His wife and son honor his wishes to sponsor the refugees after his death.

Mel is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Russell. Following his late father’s wishes, he sponsors Ba, the Girl, and the four uncles to live with him. Ba and the four uncles work as maintenance workers on his crew. He brings in drawers of Mr. Russell’s belongings like toy horses and a butterfly encased in glass into his office space. After the Girl breaks some of the items while trying to free the butterfly, Mel asks her and her father to find somewhere else to live.

Mrs. Russell is the kind widow of Mr. Russell as well as Mel’s mother. She grieves her husband after his death. For a time, she grows close to Ba and the Girl, taking them with her every Sunday to the mountains, where father and daughter play in the snow. The Girl eventually refers to Mrs. Russell as “the grandmother” due to the older woman's kindness and attentiveness.

The uncles are four men who flee on the same boat as Ba and the Girl from Vietnam. They are all picked up by the same U.S. naval ship and taken to live with Mel in the U.S. The Girl asks them questions about Mr. Russell’s home and occasionally removes the shoes of the uncles when they drunkenly pass out in bed. Although they are not relatives of Ba and the Girl and are actually strangers to them, the Girl refers to them using the kinship term of “uncles” in a sign of respect for their older age. 

The non-Vietnamese landlord of the red apartment oversees where Ma, Ba, and the Girl first live together as a family. He comes to replace the building’s washing machine and grows irate when he finds that children have been jumping into the swimming pool from the second floor, so he fills in the pool with rocks and a single palm tree. His refusal to understand his tenants and his characterization of them in sweeping stereotypes based on their immigrant status is an indication of the xenophobia that the Vietnamese refugees experience in America. 

The Girl’s grandparents—Ma’s mother and father—first appear in a black-and-white photograph sent from Vietnam. They adore Ma and look down upon Ba, whom they do not think is worthy of their daughter. After moving to the U.S., Ma feels guilty that she has left her parents behind in Vietnam. The grandfather plays a significant role in the novel because he recovers the body of the Girl’s brother from the beach and brings the boy inside the family house, leading townsfolk to gossip that the child has brought “bad water” or a sort of bad omen upon the family.

We don’t know much about Ba’s family, other than that he is estranged from them and that he says his father is Vietnamese and his mother is French. 

Referred to as the “chicken egg girl” (88) by Ba, Anh lives next door to the Girl in Linda Vista. She has chickens in her backyard, and she sells eggs every day out of a cart. Ma likes the blue tarp covering her house because it reminds her of the South China Sea near Vietnam.

When the Girl and her father are unable to sleep during their early years in America, they take the bus around town and walk around the shops late at night. They pass by a French bakery, which they call a Mexican bakery because the owner is from Mexico. He practices speaking English, learning from a cassette tape as he prepares dough. 

This a boy with whom the Girl has her first nascent romantic encounters in a cardboard box known as the Kissing Box, catalyzing her understanding of sexuality as she undergoes puberty.