The themes found in this non-fiction essay are rebellious, and a quest of identity. The interesting thing about this non-fiction is that the two themes works hand in hand. Lam admitted to being rebellious when he started his life in America. In the essay he said: “iIn America, however, I became rebellious, distant. And once mother asked me to speak Vietnamese inside the house. “No” I answered in English, curtly. “What good is it to speak it, mom? It’s not as if I’m going to use it after I move out” (“Who Will Light the Incense When Mother’s Gone”). Lam isn’t.