Immigrant Life

The author uses this theme to explore how different members of the Cheng family feel about being Chinese immigrants/the children of Chinese immigrants. Jack lived in China for the first five years of his life, and when he initially came to the U.S., he longed to return there because he was essentially ignored by his parents as they prepared for his little sister's birth. While it is never stated outright, one might presume that the intensity of Patty's ambition to perform well at work can be partly attributed to her awareness that she is an outsider—a Chinese woman in a male-dominated field living in a predominantly white city. It is Annabel, though, who feels most passionately about China, as she has somehow absorbed the notion that it is the “land of bad guys” (92). She presumes this means it is literally like hell...