No Reclaimed Homeland: Thi Bui's Postcolonial Historiography in The Best We Could Do

Abstract:Thi Bui's The Best We Could Do, a graphic memoir centering on her family's experience with war in Vietnam and resettlement in the United States, earned critical acclaim upon its publication in 2017. It touched a nerve with US readers attuned to their country's rising xenophobia, eliciting praise for humanizing refugees. Her comic certainly stirs compassion with its fusion of emotive drawings and text—but it does more. Bui subtly encourages readers not only to see refugees as human but also to realize that no polity exists apart from migrancy. Situating her book in recent postcolonial theory, I read it as a commentary on the shifting nature of history and nation. Bui presents no singular homeland, past or present, implicitly calling into question some Americans' desire for a walled nation and bounded culture.