She listened as her father worried about his pay and his friends and how they were all making their living here in this new country. He said his friends, who were educated and had great jobs in Laos, now found themselves picking worms or being managed by pimple-faced teenagers. They'd had to begin all over again, as if the life they led before didn't count."
-- Narrator (How to Pronounce Knife)

Importance: In "How to Pronounce Knife," the child's father complains about his own job and the menial jobs his fellow Lao immigrants are forced to take to make ends meet in their new country. Work certificates, degrees, and experience often do not carry over from one country to the next, so people who were teachers or doctors in their home country must start all over when they move somewhere else. This exact situation is also depicted in "Picking Worms," in which the narrator's 14-year-old classmate is...