Learning a Language, Inventing a Future

Commentator Andrew Lam says that when he came to the United States from Vietnam, he began to learn English at the same time that his voice began to change. He went from a sweet-sounding child speaking Vietnamese to a craggy-sounding teenager speaking broken English.

Still, he says, he liked speaking English -- it made him feel he could be a new person in a new language. Andrew Lam is the author of the book Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora.