Bich Minh Nguyen’s memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner (2007), is a Bildungsroman in which Bich, a Vietnamese refugee child, attempts to consume her way into assimilation. The Bildungsroman is a productive genre for linking immigration to assimilation; for refugee writers, the genre transforms their struggles with military and racial violence into stories of victimization and healing that are palatable to a largely white American audience. Using Nguyen’s memoir, a narrative driven by hunger for American junk food and integration, this essay links the language of nourishment to Nguyen’s performance of a Bildungsroman in order to articulate Nguyen’s resistance to the genre’s push for assimilation, as well as American discursive treatment of Vietnamese refugees as victims to be saved. In doing so, I argue that Nguyen’s performance of the Bildungsroman with an unsatisfying conclusion offers a model for the disruption of American assumptions about immigration, American inclusion, and the Vietnamese refugee experience.

中文翻译：

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难吃的菜：在阮碧明的偷佛宴上演成长小说

Bich Minh Nguyen 的回忆录《偷佛的晚餐》（2007 年）是一部成长小说，其中越南难民儿童 Bich 试图通过消耗自己的方式进入同化。成长小说是一种将移民与同化联系起来的富有成效的体裁；对于难民作家来说，这种类型将他们与军事和种族暴力的斗争转变为受害和治愈的故事，这些故事对以美国白人为主的观众来说是可口的。这篇文章使用 Nguyen 的回忆录，一个由对美国垃圾食品和融合的渴望驱动的叙事，这篇文章将营养语言与 Nguyen 的成长小说的表演联系起来，以阐明 Nguyen 对这种流派推动同化的抵制，以及美国对越南语的话语处理难民作为被拯救的受害者。在这样做，