Berkeley is the university destination Lana insists on choosing against her parents’ wishes. In the narrative, it marks both an educational opportunity and a point of conflict: the General and Madame regard the university as a radical, communist stronghold, while Lana’s determination to study there becomes an early assertion of her independence.

Lana’s Scholarship and Choice

Lana earns a scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, where she plans to study art history. Her parents oppose the choice. The General and Madame consider Berkeley a colony of radical professors and revolutionary students who might beguile their daughter; they would prefer to send her to a women’s college. Lana has applied to none of those schools and insists on Berkeley.

Family Conflict and Departure

When the General and Madame forbid her to go, Lana threatens suicide. The General initially does not take the threat seriously, but changes his position after she swallows a handful of sleeping pills. Madame remains opposed. Lana then throws herself into the Saigon River, where two pedestrians rescue her. After this second attempt, Madame concedes, and Lana flies to Berkeley in the fall of 1972.

Her parents accept her choice on terms that reveal their own expectations: they regard art history as a subject that will cultivate feminine sensibilities and prepare her for marriage. Berkeley therefore represents a future Lana has chosen, even as her parents try to interpret that choice within a conventional role for her.

Graduation and Independence

Lana returns to visit the General and Madame during the summers of 1973 and 1974, but her appearance and manner have changed. She graduates cum laude, yet does not return to her parents’ home afterward, choosing to live on her own. The General calls her unfilial and becomes unusually unwilling to discuss what she is doing. Berkeley is thus tied not only to her education but also to a separation from the family life her parents expected her to resume.

Berkeley in the Narrative

The narrative presents Berkeley through the conflict surrounding Lana rather than through a description of the university itself. Its significance lies in the competing meanings assigned to her education: for her parents, Berkeley is a feared political and social influence; for Lana, it is the destination she persists in choosing. Her later independence gives that choice consequences beyond graduation.

That personal departure sits within a wider story of displacement. The General’s family and other refugees have left Vietnam, while many exiles are scattered across the United States rather than allowed to settle together. Lana’s move to Berkeley is distinct from the forced dispersal of refugees, but it places her education and self-directed life within the book’s broader account of people making new lives away from home.