The Manicurist's Daughter Quotes

“On my second trip to Việt Nam, right after I graduated college, I visited my cousin, one of Aunt #1's many sons, who had a rice paddy. My new red leather New Balance sneakers got a little muddy as I squatted down to pull a thin green blade of grass from the earth. At the bottom was a very tiny grain of rice. No wonder Bà Ngoại would lose her shit every time I didn't finish my bowl. It was literal backbreaking work to get it from the field to the dinner table.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“My name is Susan Liễu. I come from a line of courageous nail salon workers who are my heroes. Má was a manicurist, and Ba was a manicurist too. I am the manicurists’ daughter and, this is just the beginning.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“How did I come to distort my narrative over the years that I was so unloved? Ba and Dì Nhung were barely making any money at the nail salon, yet they bought me a cross-country ticket so I could choose between two Ivies. Ba made countless sacrifices for years so I could have that privilege.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“I thought becoming a mother was going to be the perfect way to heal my relationships with the older generation. But even after I announced my pregnancy, they still found ways to judge me, which sent me into a perpetual self-hating cycle.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“It made me realize we have to connect with our ancestors, our past, so we can move on to the future with more confidence and more closure.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“Rarely did this woman ever make time for herself. I could see how plastic surgery became a rare gift she felt entitled to after giving so much of herself to the family.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“Má’s cardinal rule was never to waste anything, be it money, time, and especially food. Because we were immigrants, the odds were already stacked against us.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“They privately beat themselves up when they couldn’t meet these impossible beauty standards and then passed it on to their daughters.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“She said the number one customers for plastic surgery were middle-aged nail salon workers who were afraid their husbands would cheat on them with someone younger and sexier than they were, which I found fascinating and demoralizing.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“What she didn’t realize was how her fixation on perfection would cut up her body, our family, and her future.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“The doctor, like all humans, would have his karma served to him one day. In his Buddhist way, he was trying to give me some kind of assurance that there was a prevailing order of right and wrong in this chaotic world. That would be nice.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“was a jungle Asian through and through.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“My blood started to boil. What was the point of probation if there was no accountability? My strategy to take him down was”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“daydreamed we could sidestep our egos and acknowledge how we had hurt each other in the past. Reaffirm our love for each other. Reframe the narrative to turn our pain into power! Above all, I wanted his validation.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“She pushed us out of the store like I had done something egregious. I officially felt like a whale. The next two shops did the same exact thing. It was as clear as day: I failed at being Vietnam.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“I became enraged at Ba, at Má’s life-ending tummy tuck, at the pure misogyny of needing to have a flat stomach to find a good husband or be beautiful.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“It made me do dumb things like join a cult. If I couldn’t resolve this now, what else would I do in my life because I was projecting or triggered by her loss? I didn’t want her death to continue to bind me.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“Neither of my parents finished high school. My shame turned to fury. I wanted to tackle these elitist brats. I got in fully on my own merit, but I couldn’t help but wonder: Was I the admissions office’s mistake?”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“The giddy smile I’d had the entire party sagged. My eyes started to sting. I didn’t know what to say. Was he jealous? Or worse, was he right? Was I actually the fool?”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“Ba was forced to play a role he never wanted. A widow with four children and now the owner of two nail salons with no employees. He was forced to become the glue that only Má could be. It was only inevitable that everything would fall apart.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“Hang saw the aunts’ actions as betrayal. They were abandoning the family when we needed them most. They were traitors in his eyes.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“I wanted their judgment to stop. I wished someone would give me affection and reassure me that I was enough. I wanted to be loved. So I wrote down every piece of food I ate and every mile I ran, daydreaming for a prince-like boyfriend to save me.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“She wasn’t exactly the freshly baked cookies and milk kind of grandma.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“Over the years, I tried to cope with therapy, exercise, meditation, and supplements, but my family’s judgmental comments still rattled me and sent me spiraling.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“And twice a year, these episodes would be so bad I would have suicidal ideation but never acted on it. It was usually a boyfriend who eased me back to reality.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“part of me wanted her to have a mental illness so I could have an answer to explain her unstable behavior and my own. If she was bipolar, and that was genetic, then I could blame the emotional episodes I experienced as a teen and well into adulthood on someone or something else.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“For years, I have tried to come up with theories to explain her erratic behavior. She could have had an undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Then again, Má and Ba used to argue a lot.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“At the shop, we labored hand and foot, serving Americans. And tonight, even if it was just for two hours, we weren’t the servers, we were the served.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“She was always in charge of the situation. She had a cool about her reserved for movie stars that played gangsters. I never doubted for a second that she would ever get into real trouble. So of course she got rid of the cops. I was as certain about her as she was about herself.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter

“Once my sister and I finished our homework, there was always something more to do: arrange the nail polish in numerical order; carry the customers’ purses to the hand-drying station; feed the parking meters; fold the hand towels; straighten the magazines.”
― Susan Lieu, The Manicurist's Daughter