“What is a country but a borderless sentence, a life? […] What is a country but a life sentence?” (Vuong 9)

On his first day back in office, U.S. President Donald Trump declared illegal immigration a national emergency. The New York Times revealed the president’s intention to significantly escalate his first-term immigration policy, with plans to conduct large-scale raids on undocumented individuals already in the U.S. and hold them in massive detention camps while awaiting deportation (Baker and Shear). Speaking in Ankeny, Iowa, in September of 2023, Trump declared that „Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” Moreover, during rallies, the president has blurred the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants and has promised to deport both. These priorities were reinforced during his inauguration speech on January 20^th, when Trump declared: “We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”

Ocean Vuong’s 2019 novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous unfolds as a cathartic letter written by a so-called “criminal alien” to his mother, depicting an intimate, deeply personal account of displacement, memory, and self-definition. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unveils a family tale rooted in the Vietnam War and a generational desire for survival as refugees in a nation built on erasure. A single glance at this shattering semi-biographical story is enough to dismantle Trump’s reductive label of the immigrant identity – one not dictated by crime, but by love, resilience, and a perpetual struggle for belonging. Vuong’s provoking writing challenges the dehumanizing rhetoric of Trump’s mass deportation policy by exposing the raw reality of the immigrant experience and rejecting its reductive depiction. Little Dog powerfully states: “I was seen—I who had seldom been seen by anyone. I who was taught, by you, to be invisible in order to be safe” (Vuong 96). However, in an age where anonymity equates to death, invisibility has been replaced by a desperate need for representation. Following the onset of the president’s agenda, thousands of people affected took to social media to share their stories. Therefore, survival in Trump’s America requires exposure.

During his campaign in December 2023, the current president of the U.S. stated that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country,” alluring to the purity of a nation corrupted by “animals”, [4/2/24], “drug lords”, “gang members” [4/22/15], “people from insane asylums” [3/4/24],  “murderers and terrorists” [9/13/24], derogatory terms which have become a pivotal point of his campaign since its initial launch in June 2015 (Alba). These comments, intended for stigmatization and reminiscent of “language used by white supremacists”,strip the immigrant experience of its fundamental humanity and violently enforce racial minorities as the Other.  The president’s rhetoric further feeds into broader societal prejudices, positioning immigrant communities as both expendable and dangerous, further perpetuating a culture of exclusion. In contrast, Vuong’s epistolary form acts as a counter-narrative to the impersonal, bureaucratic nature of deportation policies, offering a raw, first-person depiction that exposes the dehumanization at the heart of Trump’s discourse. The novel’s second line, “Dear Ma,” immediately establishes a tone of intimacy through its letter format, standing in stark opposition to the belittling language of recent discussions. The confession opens with “I am writing to reach you – even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are” (Vuong, 3). It is later revealed that the novel is addressed to a mother who cannot read, whose education was interrupted after an American napalm raid that led to the school’s collapse: “At five, you never stepped into a classroom again. […] Our Vietnamese, a time capsule, a work of where your education ended, ashed. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war” (Vuong 32).

Language is a central theme of the novel, highlighting further marginalization. The language barrier marks another layer of otherness, which Little Dog faces from an early age. A pivotal moment occurs on the school bus, where the deeply ingrained anti-immigrant sentiment in American children becomes painfully evident: “‘Hey.’ The jowlboy leaned in, his vinegar mouth on the side of my cheek. ‘Don’t you ever say nothin’? Don’t you speak English?’ He grabbed my shoulder and spun me to face him. ‘Look at me when I’m talking to you.’ He was only nine but had already mastered the dialect of damaged American fathers.” (Vuong 24). This attitude of linguistic discrimination is also discerned in Trump’s discourse, when he states about immigrants: “They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in, practically.” [9/10/24]. Little Dog is physically assaulted during the encounter by the other boys on the bus, in the face of which his mother feels helpless: “‘You have to find a way, Little Dog. […] You have to because I don’t have the English to help you’” (Vuong 26). Language, in this context, transcends communication; it becomes crucial for navigating a system that demands assimilation and leaves no room for cultural retention.

About his mother’s linguistic battle, the narrator writes: “When it comes to words, you possess fewer than the coins you saved from your nail salon tips in the milk gallon under the kitchen cabinet” (Vuong 29). The lack of fluency, therefore, places immigrants like Little Dog and his family at a perpetual disadvantage, contributing to their dehumanization and reinforcing their status as outsiders: “The large boy took out a key chain and started scraping the paint off my bike. It came off so easily, in rosy sparks. I sat there, watching the concrete fleck with bits of pink as he gashed the key against the bike’s bones. I wanted to cry but did not yet know how to in English. So I did nothing” (Vuong 134).

Furthermore, the novel explores how language is intrinsically tied to identity. In the context of the epistolary form, self-expression is, above all, a means of healing. Through the text’s confessive nature, Little Dog attempts to reclaim his voice and agency in a climate that strives to systematically censor immigrant voices. Although his mother continuously grapples with being understood, as “One does not ‘pass’ in America, it seems, without English” (Vuong 52), the speaker finds in language – and in writing – a refuge for resistance and self-definition. Despite ongoing political attempts to silence immigrant narratives and enforce a criminalized conformity, Little Dog demonstrates just how impactful personal accounts can be in challenging such forces. By blurring the line between personal revelation and collective experience, the novel acts as an inspiring discourse of endurance and gives voice to authentic perspectives that are often overlooked or misrepresented.

The novel also sheds light on the labor, invisibility, and endurance that shape the immigrant workforce in the U.S. Little Dog writes about his mother’s occupation: “In the nail salon, sorry is a tool one uses to pander until the word itself becomes currency. It no longer merely apologizes, but insists, reminds: I’m here, right here, beneath you. It is the lowering of oneself so that the client feels right, superior and charitable. […] Being sorry pays, being sorry even, or especially, when one has no fault, is worth every self-deprecating syllable the mouth allows. Because the mouths must eat” (Vuong 91). Here, surviving in Trump’s America means complying with a system that not only demands subordination, but rewards it, thus further enforcing a systemic racial hierarchy. The self-inflected submission, as described in the novel, mirrors the state-sponsored violence of mass deportation, which subjects immigrants to criminalizing narratives and compels them to apologize for their existence in a country that has long ceased to accommodate them. This is also evident in the introduction of Little Dog’s queer narrative through Trevor, his love interest throughout the novel, whom he meets at 14 while working on a tobacco farm: “‘I’m Trevor’. […] And because I am your son, I said, ‘Sorry.’ Because I am your son, my apology had become, by then, an extension of myself. It was my Hello” (Vuong 94).

The nail salon embodies a heritage stronghold in Little Dog’s displaced universe, “more than a place of work and a workshop for beauty, it is also a place where our children are raised. […] A place where folklore, rumors tall tales and jokes from the old country are told, expanded, laughter erupting in back rooms the size of rich people’s closets, then quickly lulled into an eerie, untouched quiet. It’s a makeshift classroom where we arrive, fresh off the boat, the plane, the depths, hoping the salon would be a temporary stop – until we get on our feet, or rather, until our jaws soften around English syllables” (Vuong 80). A microcosm of ethnic identity, his mother’s workplace becomes both a lifeline for Little Dog’s family and a symbol of resilience. About his mother’s hands, the speaker confesses: “Because I am your son, what I know of work I know equally of loss. And what I know of both I know of your hands. […] Your hands are hideous – and I hate everything that made them that way. I hate how they are the wreck and reckoning of a dream. How you’d come home, night after night, plop down on the couch, and fall asleep inside a minute” (Vuong 79). The striking imagery of Rose’s hands exposes a harsh reality of immigration: a lifelong struggle for economic survival, due to systemic barriers, labor exploitation, and social marginalization.

After the first presidential debate of 2024, Trump faced massive criticism for suggesting that Black and Hispanic people have only certain types of jobs (Alba). In reality, these are jobs that, while massively boosting the U.S. economy (Lopez), leave no room for self-preservation, provide scant financial relief, and leave workers unable to meet basic needs, such as housing, food, and healthcare. They offer little security or opportunity for upward mobility, trapping many in cycles of poverty and vulnerability, despite their critical role in maintaining the nation’s infrastructure and industries, as illustrated by the following passage: “A new immigrant, within two years, will come to know that the salon is, in the end, a place where dreams become the calcified knowledge of what it means to be awake in American bones – with or without citizenship – aching, toxic and underpaid” (Vuong 81). Characterized by low wages and precarious conditions, such positions reflect the inequalities that perpetuate economic hardship for many immigrant communities, as well as the truth behind the American dream, which demands sacrifice without fulfillment.

President Trump has often linked the opioid epidemic to immigrants, particularly those crossing the southern border. In his 2019 Oval Office address, he stated: „Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across our southern border.” Vuong offers insight into this controversial problem by illustrating the broader context of systemic issues faced by marginalized communities. His striking confession reads:

They say addiction might be linked to bipolar disorder. It’s the chemicals in our brains, they say. I got the wrong chemicals, Ma. Or rather, I don’t get enough of one or the other. They have a pill for it. They have an industry. They make millions. Did you know people get rich off of sadness? I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, ‘It’s been an honor to serve my country’ (Vuong 181).

Despite their lack of agency in such matters, immigrants are often scapegoated for crises such as the opioid epidemic, when, in reality, its roots are far more complex. The rise of opioid addiction in the U.S. has been driven by factors such as over-prescription of painkillers, lack of access to mental health care, poverty, and a history of underfunded healthcare systems (Judd, King, & Galke, 2020). The crisis has disproportionately affected rural and working-class communities, often with devastating effects on individuals and families. Little Dog offers a painfully vivid description of his city: “In my Hartford, where fathers were phantoms, dipping in and out of their children’s lives, like my own father. Where grandmothers, abuelas, abas, nanas, babas, and bà ngoạis were kings, crowned with nothing but salvaged and improvised pride and the stubborn testament of their tongues as they waited on creaking knees and bloated feet outside Social Services for heat and oil assistance smelling of drugstore perfume and peppermint hard candies, their brown oversized Goodwill coats dusted with fresh snow as they huddled, steaming down the winter block—their sons and daughters at work or in jail or overdosed or just gone, hitching cross-country on Greyhounds with dreams of kicking the habit, starting anew, but then ghosting into family legends” (Vuong 213).

Additionally, the novel deeply dives into the enduring impact of war and its aftermath. Vuong offers a cyclical perspective that starts with a vivid depiction of its history and its lingering trauma on the narrator’s family. Little Dog recalls an episode from the age of five or six, when, playing a prank, he jumps from behind the hallway door, shouting “Boom!”, which causes his mother to burst into tears. He writes: “I didn’t know that the war was still inside you, that there was a war to begin with, that once it enters you it never leaves—but merely echoes, a sound forming the face of your own son. Boom” (Vuong 4). The novel emphasizes how the scars of war and loss do not fade away, but rather shape the future, their echoes also evident in the protagonist’s relationship with his mother: “When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?” (Vuong 12). In this sense, the war is both inherited and ongoing, visible in the text’s startling depiction of intergenerational trauma. Its repercussions are unveiled both in the internal, psychological sense, clear in Little Dog’s family dynamics, sense of self, and experience with alienation and violence, as well as in its broader societal and cultural dimension, touching on how systemic forces – such as racism, poverty, and discrimination – serve as ongoing fight for survival in a foreign land.

Shortly after his return to office, President Trump halted the refugee resettlement program. Moreover, the U.S. agency overseeing refugee processing and arrivals confirmed in an email reviewed by The Associated Press that „refugee arrivals to the United States have been suspended until further notice,” thus placing Afghans seeking refuge in serious jeopardy (PBS News). Shawn VanDiver, the founder and president of #AfghanEvac, a coalition of organizations that has been working to bring Afghan allies to safety since the end of the war in 2021, told CNN: “When you’re in hiding, and when you’re terrified, every day feels like an eternity. Years results in lost trust. We are creating national security problems for ourselves by making it impossible for these folks, to whom we made a promise, to enjoy that promise.” (CNN, 2025) These broader dehumanizing policies are also criticized by Vuong, who illustrates how individuals are left vulnerable to the violent consequences of political power. His closing statement acts as a poignant manifesto of human resilience amidst brutality: “All this time I told myself we were born from war—but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty. Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence—but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it” (Vuong 231).

Ultimately, through its innovative exploration of love, identity, and loss within systematic oppression, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous acts as a necessary testament to humanity in the context of recent deportation policies. Vuong’s evocative prose not only reimagines immigrant narratives but restores authenticity to marginalized voices, rendering them visible, urgent and undeniable. Little Dog’s journey mirrors the broader struggles of immigrant communities, offering an unescapable portrayal of their resilience. The novel invites readers to engage deeply with the complexities of survival and justice and urges a collective recognition of the power of action in the face of oppressive systems.

Works cited:

Alba, Monica. „Trump’s Degrading Language Toward Immigrants.” NBC News, 6 Oct. 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-degrading-language-immigrants-rcna171120. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025.

Baker, Peter, and Michael D. Shear. “Trump and His Allies Plot an Expanded Immigration Crackdown in 2025.” The New York Times, 11 Nov. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/politics/trump-2025-immigration-agenda.html. Accessed 16 Feb. 2025.

CNN. (2025, January 21). Trump issues executive order halting Afghan refugee resettlements. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/21/politics/donald-trump-executive-order-afghanistan-refugees/index.html

Judd, Dallin et al. “The Opioid Epidemic: A Review of the Contributing Factors, Negative Consequences, and Best Practices.” Cureus vol. 15,7 e41621. 10 Jul. 2023, doi:10.7759/cureus.41621

Lopez, Ricardo. „Immigrants Are Helping the U.S. Job Market Grow Without Affecting Inflation.” NBC News, 9 May 2023, www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/immigrants-are-helping-us-job-market-grow-without-affecting-inflation-rcna146570. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025.

„Trump Administration Cancels Travel for Refugees Already Cleared to Resettle in the U.S.” PBS News, 19 Jan. 2020, www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-administration-cancels-travel-for-refugees-already-cleared-to-resettle-in-the-u-s.

Vuong, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Penguin Press, 2019.