In the opening chapter of Shirley Le’s debut novel, Funny Ethnics, main character Sylvia Nguyen is praying with her family in western Sydney’s Phước Huệ Temple, asking Buddha to help her pass the selective school test she’s taking that year. “Soz for the stupid question,” she mumbles. “I know you’re not Santa.”
That child-Sylvia believes that Santa could grant this request, while Buddha could not, reflects the push-pull of heritage and home that characterises the lives of so many second-generation migrant children. As the only child of Vietnamese refugees who never discuss the traumas of leaving their homeland by boat, Sylvia’s story is one of both longing and belonging. But what she is actually longing for – pleasing her parents, kowtowing to community expectations, fitting in or standing out – is often so unclear, both to herself and the reader, that at times I found her to be frustratingly passive.
