Making coal patties. Selling liquid soap. Shopping at a glittering shoe mecca. She is done them all living half her life in deprived-post-war-communist-Vietnam-turned-free-market. Coming to America at 29 and experiencing life here as an adult is a push towards her transcending journey to transform herself from an international student to a naturalized American, to a new self free of the dead past and her ancestors sins. Why Do You Look at Me and See a Girl is a story written by a full-fledged bilingual who, as her adoration for the impeccable American logical trait is put into perspective, struggles to get free from the power play and biases, cultural inhibitors and prejudices that condition human behaviors, be it in Vietnam, America or Thailand.