Speaker
The speaker of the poem is not identified by gender and so could be either the son or daughter of the title character. What is known is that the speaker is of Vietnamese descent, is very devoted to the mother, has done well to instill a sense of pride in her, but reaches a moment of realization that there are many things that remain unknown about the person who birth to the child that grew up into the adult.
The Mother
The title character came to American from her home in Saigon as one of the many thousands who escaped the country’s civil war which became a regional conflict when America began sending troops. The speaker inquires about things to which the mother aspired in her youth before the shooting began with expectations that the response will be about gardening. Instead, the mother both surprises and bonds with her child by admitting that her dream became the child’s reality when she answers that her passion was teaching and her dream to become a teacher. It is a legacy denied but herself but passed down a generation.
