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The Bui family’s transition from their daring escape from Vietnam to their difficult first years in America, showcasing the sheer physical and emotional upheaval of starting over as refugees. The narrative first picks up in Chapter 8 at the chaotic Pulau Besar refugee camp in Malaysia, which despite its harsh conditions and crowding, became the temporary "shore" of safety; here, Ma displayed her strength, restoring organization, securing better living conditions, and giving birth to the last child, Tam while simultaneously navigating the red tape of resettlement applications and securing sponsorship to the U.S. even as Bo faced a temporary medical delay due to old tuberculosis scars. Chapter 9 then documents their confusing arrival in Chicago and their immediate relocation to an incredibly packed house in Hammond, Indiana, where they experienced profound culture shock, realizing how different they were from their "Americanized" relatives; in response, Bo and Ma imme...

 The book starts with the author Thi Bui giving birth to her son, which instantly makes her think about her mother's past and the meaning of being a parent, so she starts looking backward in the story. Chapter 3 focuses on her difficult US childhood: at her family's small apartment in San Diego, which functioned as a "holding pen" of pain and fear for her immigrant parents, particularly from her father, Bo, an angry man telling her scary stories, while her mother, Ma , worked in a factory. For her father's fears to be understood, the action moves further into his youth in Vietnam during Chapter 4, unfolding his deep trauma from the difficult childhood he had marked by famine, abandonment by his father, and a massacre of local villagers by French soldiers at age seven, which explains his later paranoia. Chapter 5 was devoted to Ma’s story, which was far more comfortable: she grew up in a wealthy family, and was driven by an idea that education equaled freedom and t...