Provide a theme in the narrative.

Invisibility is a theme in the narrative. Forever assigned the role of Generic Asian Man, Willis finds himself locked in an invisible version of reality and personhood. The author uses Willis's struggle to claim his true identity, to own his experience as the son of Asian immigrants, and to think and speak as himself, to explore the Asian man's experience living in America. At the start of the novel, Willis is made to stand just offscreen in early scenes of the Black and White cop show. As he witnesses Green and Turner's condescending interactions with Old Asian Man, convinced "they're going to shoot him," Willis becomes desperate "to say something"; "but," he wonders, "how can you? You don't have any lines" (43). In this early moment from the novel, placed at the start of Act II, the author introduces Willis's feelings of inferiority and invisibility.