1. Travor's dilemma is based on fact.

Explore the effect that real-life Vietnamese refugees had on coastal fishing communities after they settled in America.

2. The restaurant in Travor would not serve Kien. Explore civil rights laws of the 1960s that address this kind of discrimination.

3. The Vietnamese fishermen in Travor over-caught and undersold their fish. Were they justified in undermining the local market conditions? Examine Vietnamese identity and customs that might have led to their doing this.

4. Paul Orrin's supporters acted like the Ku Klux Klan toward the Vietnamese. But Thay Van Chi's voice tells Kien that "men act evilly because they are afraid." Explore motivations that the KKK and Travor fishermen have in common.

5. "Mob psychology" is a frequent phenomenon. Explore its occurrence in this story. How and why it is activated? How and why is it deactivated?

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