Kathy

Appears in
Mango and Peppercorns: A Memoir of Food, an Unlikely Family, and the American Dream
Mango and Peppercorns

By Tung Nguyen, Katherine Manning, Lyn Nguyen and Elisa Ung

Published 2021

  • About
Tung’s family didn’t know what to make of me.
“Do you have a husband?” they asked.
I just laughed. “Americans always ask me the same thing!” I replied in the Vietnamese I had learned over the years.

I watched as Tung gave out her gifts. As I thought of the sacrifices she had made to save money, Tung’s family snatched them up without so much as a thank-you. Phuongy and I watched as they dove over each other to take as many of the sweatshirts, toothbrushes, and medicine bottles as they could, not making any effort to share equally.