Song of the Buffalo Boy

Seventeen-year-old Loi, whose father was an American soldier, is ostracized by her fellow villagers because she is con-lai, a half-breed. Loi has been promised to a cruel older man, but rather than marry him, she flees to Ho Chi Minh City, and along with thousands of other Amerasians, she begins the confusing process of applying for the Amerasian Homecoming Program. “Drawing attention to painful and neglected topics, Garland’s writing is strongly atmospheric, with graceful interpolations of Vietnamese words and references to Vietnamese culture and traditions.