"Home! Home is a place you find in your heart, not on a map. People are raised to think their native country is their home, but that's not always true. Coming back a changed person to a place whose people live differently from the way you knew is another kind of homecoming" (64). This is a very enlightening statement. I have never thought about home this way. Le Ly grew up in a time of war, so her home town she grew up in is different now. Therefore her return would seem unfamiliar and uneasy instead of warm childhood memories. Le Ly has a FLASHBACK to a night when an attack is over their village. She had to help her mother bury a Viet Cong solider and what kind of memory is this? Not one I would want to come back to, but they get worse. Le Ly is arrested and taken to a military camp. She is interrogated, but surprisingly let go. Unfortunately, upon her return to the village the Viet Cong get ahold of her and take her to a trial. She is not executed, but raped twice. Her strong woman warrior personality is torn from her. When Le Ly arrives back to her home years later, she has a barrier separating her from her childhood home.
This image reminds me of the feeling you get when you think of your home. You think of the memories and the love, but Le Ly did not have that feeling when she thought of her native home. The memory she had had a dark feeling, the feeling you get when something bad happens. I don't think Le Ly's heart was anywhere near this home.
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