2021-2022 Common Book Memoir of a Refugee

By Erik Bakke, Executive Director of Academic Success and International Student Services

The 2021-22 Menlo College common book is The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui, a graphic novel about, according to Bui, “parents and children.” It chronicles the family’s departure from Vietnam in the late seventies as war refugees, their journey to the United States, and their construction of a new life. Many in the popular press have drawn parallels between Bui’s representation of the end of U.S. military engagement in Vietnam in 1975 and the recent end of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.

The purpose of the common book is to help promote reading among Menlo College first-year students and provide a foundation text for broad-based discussion. Throughout the fall semester of 2021, students, staff, and faculty were encouraged to read The Best We Could Do and participate in group discussions.

Bui’s direct and poetic account of an American immigration story has struck a chord with Menlo students and led to lively conversation, including student-led discussions about the parallels between the author’s circumstances and the students’ experiences.