The Sympathizer: We Weren't Ready

Spies & Subtitles

So let me start with a confession: I've had Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer on my shelf for about three years now. When I first heard about it and bought it, my enthusiasm started just that the author had the same last name - and family story - as me. It turned into something else entirely when I realized that the main character is also Mixed (Viet/French).

Somehow, the idea of delving into a piece of literature that I knew would be well-written, thoughtful, and biting toward all the right things scared me...just a little.

Growing up, I remember coming to the conclusion that I would never see on TV or read a book with a Vietnamese main character. Much less a Vietnamese Wasian main character. When I realized that The Sympathizer's main character was like me, I wasn't sure how to process it. Especially given the content of the novel itself having to do with the trauma of how my family wound up here, and ultimately, how I came to be.

The book starts off like this:

"I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds. I am not some misunderstood mutant from a comic book or a horror movie, although some have treated me as such. I am simply able to see any issue from both sides. Sometimes I flatter myself that this is a talent, and although it is admittedly one of a minor nature, it is perhaps also the sole talent I possess. At other times, when I reflect on how I cannot help but observe the world in such a fashion, I wonder if what I have should even be called talent." - Viet Thanh Nguyen, 1

Weaved into the very heart of the story is the nature of Mixed identity - and not just any Mixed identity. Mixed Vietnamese Euro-merican identity. (We'll get into that more later.)

Now, back to my confession...my copy of Nguyen's masterpiece has been sitting dormant on my bookshelf through three different moves. What got me to read it was not a sudden internal shift of my view toward it, but a trailer featuring Viet Thanh Nguyen talking about the Max series he co-produced: The Sympathizer. His "revenge on Hollywood."

Hearing his description of the series and seeing on a screen a depiction of the Vietnamese/American War from a distinctly Vietnamese perspective did me in. I watched the show and chose to start the book at the same time. Now, as you may guess, I have not yet finished the book. I have, however, been a dedicated weekly viewer of the show (I even borrowed access to a Max account so I could watch it - thanks Reuben!)

AI-Generated image of a Vietnamese cafe before the fall of Saigon

Now, I could give a full "report" of sorts on the nuances of literary symbolism, tropes, satire, etc that characterize the show, and how that interplays with the book. Instead, I'm just going to make some observations...

The Sympathizer as a show is able to present a couple of things the book simply can't: for example, have the characters speak in Vietnamese with subtitles. That may have been one of my favorite parts, actually. I've been sharing with some of my friends how this was an almost religious experience for me, not only because my own family doesn't talk much about our escape in 1975, but also because I have never in my life heard this much Vietnamese spoken on the screen before.

It's difficult to describe the experience of (1) having grown up with only a shadowy, unclear version of the story of how your family came to be in the United States, and (2) watching a representation of that same story play out on screen. The story your ong noi and ba noi never talked about. The story you've barely picked up the pieces of from childhood to now. Watching the show and beginning to read the novel at the same time was akin to scraping off the top layer of an old scar and plunging a scalpel straight to the marrow.

Something else worth noting for you, dear reader, is the reminder that the consciousness of the United States is not widely familiar with Vietnamese people. People from China, Japan, Korea, India, and the Philippines have actually been here, in the U.S., since the 1800s. Southeast Asians more broadly speaking, however, have not. As Cathy Park Hong writes in her book Minor Feelings, "I am here because you were there."

And we didn't really have a particular reason to go anywhere else until 1975.

There was not a massive influx of Viets to the States until after The United States army had meddled. Until after 1975, when there were all of a sudden people turned refugees who needed to flee to survive. It makes me think of how scattered the Asian American consciousness feels...East Asians, Southeast Asians, South Asians, and Pacific Islanders all have distinct experiences of how we wound up in this country. With incredibly varied experiences once we got here.

We have all, however, for the most part shared the experience of being othered, exocitized, erased, and then shoved into the spotlight when it's been convenient for the racial majority (for now) in this country.

Our stories are not for you to take. Or steal. Or write over. Our stories are for us to determine how to patch them altogether to share with the world who we are. Our stories are for us to tell, and for us to define ourselves.

I think it's important, perhaps now more than ever, that we continue to dive into our own histories and stories of overlap in this country. Including how Asian Americans have been propped up as a tool against other BIPOC communities because of the "model minority myth." A myth that for the most part was only applied to a select "sort" of Asian in this country to begin with...but that's for another article.

It's well past time that we tell our own stories.

I haven't finished the novel yet, but experiencing The Sympathizer show on Max, knowing this was one Nguyen's way of getting "revenge on Hollywood" for us all was a cathartic experience for me, and I think an excellent addition to the Asian American narrative.